Paradise City
by Opalalchemy
Summary: Dean grows up in Sunnydale and becomes a member of the Scooby Gang.
1. Smells Like Teen Spirit

**Paradise City**

By Opalalchemy

Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction site, hence the below material being owned by Joss Whedon and Eric Kripke. Much of the dialogue comes from Buffy 1x03 The Witch

Warning: This story is rated T for language, references to sex, and mild violence. This story is self-edited so read at your own risk. Spoilers for all seasons of Buffy and Supernatural. Constructive Criticism is welcomed.

Chapter 1: Smells Like Teen Spirit

"Giles didn't approve, huh?"

Giles so didn't approve. What was the big deal? It wasn't like she could be The Slayer 24/7! She had school, and dates, and even homework to think about. Besides, cheerleading would only help her secret identity. It would totally give credit to the whole 'normal girl living in a normal world' vibe she wanted to give off. Plus the aerobicizing would only improve her cardio which had to help with the slaying. For Buffy it was a win win, and if cheerleading occasionally interfered with her Slayer duties, well, that wouldn't be too bad either.

"He totally lost his water." She replied to Willow. "We haven't seen a vampire in over a week. I'd say he should get a girlfriend if he wasn't so old."

"Well we're behind you." said Willow. Xander nodded along importantly as he looked around the gym, eyes glazing slightly.

"People scoff at things like school spirit, but look at these girls giving their all like this! Ooo, stretchy! Where was I?"

Buffy took the time to stretch while she surveyed the competition. Girls all over the gym were warming up, some with more success than others. She could totally do the splits between two chairs too! Whether she actually wanted to was an entirely different matter.

"You were pretending that seeing scantily clad girls in revealing postures was a spiritual experience." Xander raised his eyebrows in a playfully mocking way, as Buffy continued to scan the gym's occupants. "Who said I was pretending?"

"Looks like you're not the only one enjoying the spiritual experience." She interjected, pointing at a guy who was a total eleven on the Buffy Scale of Attractiveness. He was currently giving smoochies to the squad leader, Joy. Xander and Willow followed where her finger was pointing, and then surprised her when they let out a synchronized sigh of exasperation. She gave her two friends a quizzical look.

"Um, okay. What's with the exasperated exhales?" Willow was the first to rescue her from confusion.

"That's Dean Winchester. He's with a different girl every week."

"Sometimes bi-weekly!" Xander added. Willow shook her head.

"Joy should really know better, but it's kinda become a rite of passage to say you've hooked up with him."

"Have you?" Buffy wondered, though Willows' reddening face and subsequent babble answered her question.

"Me? O-oh no! I would never! And he tends to go for more uh, more um—"

"Pretty much anything in a skirt. Don't worry Wills! I'll protect your virtue from the nefarious Dean Winchester. Just let me know if he so much as looks at you wrong and I'll send Buffy to beat him up."

"My hero." Grinned Willow brightly.

"Anyway," Xander continued, "guys like Dean might get all the girls but he has absolutely no taste in women. Sure they may be hot on the outside, but on the inside most of them are very Cordelialike. Actually, I know for a fact he hooked up with the she-monster in seventh grade, well he was in grade eight but—" Xander stopped talking when he noticed Willow's gloomy expression and a similar one crossed onto his face. Buffy knew they must have had a sudden reminder of their friend Jesse who had died the week before. Buffy had barely known him but she did recall that he had had a major crush on Cordelia Chase. She desperately tried to think of a change of subject while she simultaneously squashed the feelings of guilt rising in her abdomen. Perhaps Giles was right and this was a silly waste of time.

"Just look at that Amber. Who does she think she is, a Laker Girl?"

The she-monster herself had somehow butted her way into a conversation that in no way included her. But the three friends were grateful for once for the distraction it provided. Lowering herself into a leg stretch, Buffy once again found herself looking at the chair stretch girl, although now she was working on bending herself in half.

"I heard she turned them down." Willow said with slight bewilderment as they watched Amber go seamlessly from a backbend to a handstand. Cordelia just scoffed.

"If she thinks her backbends are going to intimidate me she's got another thing coming!" And just as quickly as she had come she left to rejoin her Cordettes in a gathering of girls not too far from Buffy, Willow, and Xander.

"Speaking of intimidation, Buffy, here's a good luck thing for tryouts." Xander said, now back to his goofy self, as he pulled a something from his pocket and handed it to Buffy.

"What's this?" she asked, while Willow quickly followed with a "What's that?" question.

Examining the something Xander gave her quickly revealed it to be a simple bracelet. Warmth spread through her chest. She had only known them for a week and they were already the closest friends she had ever had. Although since here old friends were very Cordelialike, or Pike, she wasn't sure that was saying much.

"Oh— how sweet!" She exclaimed and read the inscription out loud "Yours Always". She grinned up at Willow and Xander; it really was the sweetest thing anyone had given her lately. Xander started bumbling again and Willow got a sort of pinched look.

"I-I-it came that way, really, they all said that." Xander explained while Willow let out another exaggerated exhale. Buffy grinned again. The two of them were so adorkable.

"Okay, listen up!" Joy had finally finished sucking face with the apparently infamous Dean Winchester. Her hair was slightly mussed and Dean was lounging in the stands with a very self-satisfied looking smirk on his face. Their eyes met for a few seconds and he gave a cocky wave in her direction. Buffy wasn't sure whether to blush or try out that iron axe Giles wanted her to train with on him.

"Let's begin with Amber Grove. If you're not auditioning, move off the floor." The three friends moved towards the stands, Xander sat in the front row while she and Willow elected to stand off to the side with some of the other girls who were trying out. Willow noticed someone she knew and called over to her.

"Amy! Hi!" Amy was a pretty girl in serious need of a trim and a professional styling. Buffy embarrassingly thought that a year ago she wouldn't have given her a second thought.

"I didn't know you wanted to be a cheerleader! You lost a lot of weight."

"Had too." Amy replied. Buffy noticed that her attention was more focused on Amber than the conversation. The poor girl was all jittery with nerves.

"Do you know Buffy?" Willow introduced. They both said hello in a polite manner each of theirs' attention elsewhere, Amber's audition was about to start and if what Willow had said about her was true it was bound to be impressive.

"Oh, how I hate this, let me count the ways." Amy muttered. Poor girls' nerves must've flown out the window today.

Amber Groves' routine didn't disappoint. Everyone watched in awe as she performed cartwheels, spins and flips with a perfect smile on her face.

"She trained with Benson." Amy said. "He's one of the best coaches money can buy."

"They have cheerleading coaches?" Buffy dearly hoped Amber was the only one who did; otherwise Buffy's chances of making the team were pretty much null and void.

"Oh, yeah! Don't you have? I train with my mom, three hours in the morning, three at night."

"Hmm, that much quality time with my mom would probably lead to some quality matricide."

Which was a shame really. Buffy used to hang with her mom all the time. But then high school started and she got busy with friends and cheerleading. Then she got Called and she really didn't want to think of the fiasco that followed.

"Oh, I know it's hokey." Amy continued. "But she's really great." Buffy nodded and turned back to watching Amber, not wanting Amy to see the jealousy smeared all over her face. Amber was a lean, mean, cheerleading machine that—smoked?

"What the?"

"That girl's on fire!" Willow screamed.

"Enough of the hyperbole!" Cordelia said. But Cordelia had stopped watching Amber's tryout. Amber's hands had somehow caught fire and she was screaming and waving them in the air, probably in a lot of pain and freaked out. Buffy reacted on instinct. She ran to the nearest banner and pulled it down, then tackled Amber with it, squashing out the fire before it could spread anywhere else. Amber started crying and moaning in pain and Buffy did her best to comfort her.

"It's okay, it's okay, you're gonna be okay. God!" Vampires were one thing, but this! This was not normal. And the itch Buffy always felt but tried to ignore sparked and burned through her. Something had done this to Amber, and she was going to kill it.

* * *

"I've been slaying vampires for more than a year now, and I've seen some pretty cringe worthy things, but—nobody's hands ever got toasted before."

Willow's eyes followed Buffy's movements as she paced the room. She and Xander had wanted to wait for Buffy while she changed after the paramedics took Amber away, but she had insisted Giles needed to know what had happened right away. Willow figured Buffy needed a little time to get her bearings together, so she and Xander had dutifully followed Buffy's instructions. Buffy seemed really wigged about what had happened. Buffy, who had seemed so confident and knowledgeable about vampires and, and…Willow was scared. Just a week ago she had been thrust into this supernatural world—vampires and monsters were REAL—and if Buffy, whose job it was to slay the scary monsters was wigged, Willow definitely was too.

Willow listened a little absently as Buffy and Mr. Giles conversed a little and only confirmed what she had suspected since seeing Buffy's expression of fear earlier in the gym. That it wasn't a vampire and that they had no idea what had caused it.

"Spontaneous human combustion is, is rare, and, and scientifically unexplainable, but there have been cases for hundreds of years. Usually all that's left is a pile of ashes."

Ashes. Willow felt her stomach flip.

"That's all that would have been left if it hadn't been for Buffy."

"So, we have no idea what caused this. That's a comfort." Trust Xander to state the obvious, but she supposed someone had to say it, and at least Xander could put some snarky humor in it. Except nobody, not even Xander, found it funny, and Willow couldn't bring herself to inwardly gush like she normally would over a Xander joke.

"But that's the thrill of living on the Hellmouth!" Giles said from his perch on the edge of the table. "There's a cornucopia of, of fiends and devils and, and ghouls to engage."

Had Willow's real life been a book or a TV show she might have agreed with that statement, but this was very real and she could end up very dead. Consequently, Willow couldn't help but stare at Giles and his romanticized view of the real world, that Buffy and Xander were staring incredulously with her helped her feel vindicated. A thrill of excitement ran down her spine. She was openly disagreeing with a teacher, um, librarian—school official! How rebellious of her.

Seeing their combined disapproval Giles became slightly repentant of his statement.

"Pardon me for finding the glass half full."

"Any common denominators in cases of spontaneous combustion?" Buffy proceeded.

"Uh, rage. In most cases the person who combusted was, was terribly angry, or, or upset."

Willow thought that over. Unscientific was right. But it kinda made sense. Perhaps the Vulcans had it right. Xander of course took a different approach.

"So maybe Amber's got this power to make herself be on fire. It's like the human torch, only it hurts." Willow let herself show a small smile at that.

"I need to get the skinny on Amber. Find out if she's had any colorful episodes before."

Willow focused on the spark of rebelliousness she had felt earlier to propel her. Research she could do.

"That means hacking illegally into the schools' computer system. At last, something I can do."  
"I'll ask around about her." Xander added.

She and Xander got up to follow Buffy out the door, only to stop in their tracks when she turned around, a concerned look on her face.

"You guys don't have to get involved."

"What d'ya mean?" Xander said sounding a bit put off. "We're a team!" He looked back at her for some assurance. "Aren't we a team?"

Didn't Buffy get it? They _had_ to help. Buffy couldn't just save their lives and tell them monsters were real and expect them to do nothing! She had talked it over with Xander after The Harvest at her house over caramelized popcorn and an Indian movie they didn't really watch. Willow's parents were out of town for most of the month and neither of them had wanted to be alone that night. They had verbally promised each other and Jesse that they would do all they could to help Buffy. Because even though it felt like they had been thrust into an entirely different world with entirely different rules and regulations, the hard truth was this seemingly new reality was exactly the same as the old boring reality. Willow reasoned it was like everyone was playing the same game and everyone knew the basics, but only a few knew the rules of the advanced version. Life version two point oh. Willow liked rules; they served a purpose and brought order. The more she understood about the world the less cause she had to fear it, and physical power wasn't the only thing that came with great responsibility. Knowledge was power too, and it would just be—_wrong_ to know the truth and do nothing.

"Yeah!" They are a team. "You're the Slayer, and we're, like, the Slayerettes!"

"I just don't like putting you guys in danger." That was understandable. Buffy had superpowers and they didn't.

"Oh I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away." In Xanderspeak that was like a promise to always look both ways before crossing the street.

Buffy still seemed unsure about them helping, but seemed to sense that they wouldn't back down on the issue.

"Okay, just walk softly, at least until we know a little more. I mean, what if Amber isn't the one causing these problems herself?"

Giles' accent drifted across the library.

"Well, then we have to determine who or what did, and, uh, deal with it accordingly."

* * *

Dean's hands sifted through the Impala's contents, pushing aside knives, rosaries, and lambs' blood so he could reach his witchfinding potion. His fingers clasped around a thick vial and he held it up to the street light for proper examination. The solution was slightly crystalized, and the liquid noticeably thicker than the last time he had done a full check on his hunting supplies two weeks ago. He would have to reheat it in one of the science labs before school tomorrow. He put the vial in his jacket pocket, grabbed the consecrated iron chain, stuffed it in the black duffel, replaced the trunk's false bottom, and then locked the Impala. Stealthily he went round to the back of the house, making sure to keep in the house's shadow. When he came to the open window he gently tossed the duffel in then climbed through himself, glad not for the first time that his room was on the first floor.

He took extra care to enter his room quietly. He'd learned the hard way his first few months in Sunnydale that "Nana" Nina was liable to call the SunnyD PD at the slightest sign of something hinky, whether it be from one of the Hellmouth's many freaks or one of the kids the state of California put in her charge.

After hiding the duffel under his bed, next to his more favored and often used weapons, Dean checked the salt line duct taped to the windowsill. Unbroken. Good. Heading to his desk he pulled out his dad's journal and a list of all the cheerleaders and wannabe's that he'd swiped from Joy earlier that day.

Dean hated witches. They were always trying to off people and spilling body fluids. He knew witchcraft when he saw it that was usually the easy part of a witch hunt. The hard part was figuring out who the bitch was. He contemplated bugging Sam to help but dismissed it. Kid was asleep and he'd said something about a Spanish test tomorrow and Dean really didn't wanna listen to the bitch fest that would be sure to come. It didn't matter anyway. Witches were one of the few supernatural topics Dean knew more about than Sam. Pagan, Wiccan, Hoodoo, and Demonic were the more common types of witches in North America. He could probably rule out hoodoo, it was pretty rare outside the south. Wiccans were usually altruistic, but the line between Wicca and Pagan witchcraft was pretty thin. The only real difference, since they were both technically pagan, was the types of deities they worshipped and the witch's own conscience. The demonic kind were a whole nother can of nasty. They were people who didn't have any mojo of their own who knowingly or unknowingly sold their soul in exchange for power. They usually used hex bags as a conduit for their borrowed powers, but on the Hellmouth they were probably unneeded. The whole town was just that tainted with dark energy.

He glanced down at his list of suspects. Twenty-seven names and he only had one vial. He could cross Amber out. She was the victim. He could probably cross off the four who were already cheerleaders, which left the wannabes. The blonde chick that snuffed Amber out could be ruled out too. He'd have to find out her name so he could cross her off the list. Twenty-one names and he probably only had enough for six or seven tests. He shook his head as he pulled out last year's yearbook, wishing he'd thought ahead and picked up some coffee and Tylenol. It was going be a long night. A witch that wanted to be a cheerleader was the most likely motive, as crazy as it sounded. Girls were most definitely a different species.

* * *

Tryouts resumed the next morning before school. Thankfully there were no repeats of yesterdays' incident with the fire and the screaming, which left her in an almost unreasonably good mood. Buffy thought she had done well, and that the only thing that could keep her from making the team was her popularity, more specifically her lack of it. Amy had done surprisingly well until the cartwheel when she knocked Cordelia over.

As she left the girls locker room she noticed Amy, still in her mom's old cheerleading wear, staring into the trophy case. Amy, noticing her nearby, smiled and pointed to a cheerleading trophy.

"That's my mom."

Buffy leaned a little closer to read the inscription.

"Catherine Madison. Get down with your bad self!" She was listed as squad leader, and nearby there was a picture of a cheer team with championship dates that matched Catherine Madison's time at Sunnydale High.

"Her nickname was 'Catherine the Great'. She took that team and made them tri-county champions. Y'know, no one's ever done that before, or since. She and my dad were Homecoming King and Queen. They got married right after graduation."

"That's kinda romantic."

"Well, he was a big loser. Never made any money. Ran off with Miss Trailer Trash when I was twelve."

"Okay, that part's less romantic. My folks split up, too." She often wondered if it was her fault that happened. Sure, they had fights before she burned down Hemery High School's gymnasium, but she secretly thought they blamed each other for Buffy turning into a problem child.

"Drag, huh? Uh, he left my mom with nothing. She put herself through cosmetology school. Bought me everything I ever wanted, and never once gained a single pound."

Inferiority complex much? Buffy was starting to think she didn't have much reason to be jealous of Amy and her mom.

"Uh, she sounds really great, Amy, but, um-" Buffy paused, trying to think of the best way to say this. "It doesn't mean you need to lock step as far as this cheerleading thing."

"Ladies." Buffy and Amy turned around, both surprised to see Dean Winchester checking them both out. Seeing him up close only confirmed that he was one of the most attractive male specimens she had seen since, well, ever. But between him and the mysterious Angel, Angel won. He was tall, around six feet, lithe, and slightly lanky. Buffy figured the old leather jacket he was wearing was to make his feminine face look more butch and his frame more muscular. The guy was clearly built for speed and not power.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything, but I just wanted to wish you two luck."

"Luck?" Amy replied somewhat scathingly. "The tryouts are already over and I klutzed up major."

"Yeah, but at least you didn't catch on fire." Dean said as he moved behind Amy. He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned down by her ear. "And I took a peek at Joy's list and you, Amy Madison, are in the top ten." The intimacy of the moment left Buffy feeling like a third wheel. Though she instantly forgave Dean for barging in when she saw a hopeful look appear on Amy's face at Dean's words.

"Did you really see my name on the list?" She said, turning to face Dean. "Sure did. That your mom?" Dean nodded toward the statue.

"Catherine the Great. She was the best. Thanks Dean, I'm gonna get changed."

Buffy and Dean watched Amy walk toward the locker room, her spirits lifted, before turning to face each other.

"Hey, aren't you that new girl that saved Amber? That was pretty impressive, the way you tackled her to the ground."

Buffy looked down, slightly embarrassed. It really wasn't that big a deal, though it was nice to get some recognition for once.

"Guilty as charged." She looked back up to find Dean staring intently at her. She was once again reminded of Angel, though his dark eyes gave off more of a sexy, smoldering, mysterious kind of look. Dean's gaze was sexy, by all means, but she could detect a sort of falseness in his green eyes that led her to believe that his flirting, while proliferate, wasn't quite sincere.

"Dean Winchester." He introduced, with an offered hand she took within her own and shook once, but it surprised her slightly when he didn't let go.

"Buffy Summers."

"Well, Buffy, if my ass ever needs saving you're more than welcome to come to my rescue." He tugged her hand and pulled her body closer to his and leaned close to her ear. Normally she would be embarrassed by such actions, but for that one moment it felt like she and Dean were the only two people in the world.

"And," he whispered, "I'll reward you in kind." Oh God! Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts!

Dean let go of her and stepped back, giving her space to breathe. There was another self-satisfied smirk on his features, and once again, Buffy was unsure whether to be flattered by his attention or insulted by his womanizing ways. She'd be insulted later, she decided. Right now she was going to focus on that warm and fuzzy feeling in her stomach.

"I'll see you around…Buffy." She stood in a kind of stupor for a few seconds as she watched him walk away.

"Hey Buffy, I saw you talking with Dean and Amy."

"Willow! When did you get here?" Seriously, how did her spidey senses not notice Willow standing right next to her?"

"Just now, while you were off in La La Land." Willow gave her a concerned look. "You should really be careful with Dean, he's got a bad reputation, and it's not just for his flirting."

"Really? What kind of reputation?"

"Oh, it's nothing like Jack O'Toole's, but Dean's considered to be a pretty scary guy. He cuts class, and people say he does some pretty shady things after school, like stealing cars and selling organs on the black market."

"Organ theft? Really?" Buffy said, as they started walking down the hall toward their first class.

"Well, that one's probably just a rumor. But I do know he was booted from his middle school in LA for bringing a weapon to school. Principal Flutie has to check him every day."

"Wow." Buffy was pretty good at reading people, but she didn't get the sense that he was bad. Maybe a little dangerous, but this was the Hellmouth, she'd been getting that sense from almost everyone here, even Willow.

"Well, like I said, it's nothing like Jack O'Toole's or Sheila Martini's, but he's not the most straitlaced guy around." Buffy nodded in understanding.

"Hey, Amy was talking about her mom earlier, and I was wondering if she was kinda, um…"

"Yeah, Mrs. Madison is um…"

"Nazi like?"

"Heil. If she gains an ounce she padlocks the fridge and won't eat anything but broth."

Wow, now Buffy knew she _really_ didn't have any reason to be jealous of Amy and her mom.

"So, mommy dearest is really…Mommy Dearest?" Willow nodded a bit somberly.

"There's a bitter streak. But Amy's nice, we used to hang in junior high. When her mom would go on a broth kick, Amy would come over to my house and we'd stuff ourselves with brownies!"

"Hey, any word on Amber?"

"Nothing thrilling. Average student, got detention once for smoking. Regular smoking—with a cigarette, not, like, being smoky."

Willow was right, nothing too thrilling about that. Maybe they'd jumped the gun on this. Nothing else had happened and there had been plenty of opportunity.

* * *

"I told Buffy about Amber." Xander heard Willow say as they were walking through the quad during lunch.

"Cool! Was she wearin' it? The bracelet, she was wearin' it right? Pretty much like we're going out." He'd given her a bracelet and she'd accepted it. That had to mean something about their romantic prospects. Buffy seemed like the slow and steady kind of girl, and you gave jewelry to girls you wanted to go steady with. That's how it worked in Bye Bye Birdie with the pins.

"Except without the hugging or kissing, or her knowing about it." Willow unwelcomely reminded him.

"So I'm just a figure of fun. I should ask her out, right?"

"You won't know till you ask."

"That's why you're so cool! You're like a guy! You're my guy friend that knows about girl stuff!" That really was how Xander thought of best friend Willow. And unfortunately for him, that was the most tactful way he could think of to tell Willow that he just didn't see her that way. He was more than aware of Willow's not so subtle crush on him. Jesse had often tried to egg him into asking her out and he'd seriously considered it last year for homecoming, but no matter how hard he tried he just could not see her that way. She was his little sister and it would be very incesty if they went out.

"Oh great. I'm a guy." Not wanting to dwell on Willow's despondency, Xander decided to focus on the large mass of people by the bulletin board on the other end of the quad.

"Oh, hey! They're posting the list!"

He ran toward the single piece of paper Joy had just posted, gently pushing past Buffy and Amy and fighting his way to the front.

Squad Captain- Joy Table

Base- Cordelia Chase, Lisa Green, Rachel Heller, Susan Lewis, Iris DeFleur, Krystal Kurtz

Fliers- Lishanne Davis, Dahlia Black, Megan Martinez

First Alternate- Buffy Summers

Second Alternate- Libby Holstadt

Third Alternate- Amy Madison

He made his way back to Buffy, Amy, and Willow while heroically ducking flailing and pushing limbs.

"One of those girls hit me really hard! You should test for steroids." He gave the girls a wide grin, before continuing with the good news. "Okay, not only did you make the team, but you, Miss Summers, are the first alternate, and Amy's number three."

Would Buffy kiss him as a thank you? Would this be the right time to ask her out?

"And what a better way to celebrate than with a romantic drive through…" Okay, something was wrong. Amy looked very disappointed before she ran toward the south entrance and Buffy wasn't looking too excited either. He looked at Willow hoping she'd explain where he had gone wrong.

"Xander, alternates are the ones who didn't make the team, they only fill in if something happens to the ones who did."

"Excuse me." Buffy said as she ran in the direction Amy went.

Okay, him bearer of good news, not so much.

"For I am Xander, King of Cretins, may all lesser cretins bow before me." Willow put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"It's not so bad Xander, they would have found out anyway. It's just Amy really wanted to be a cheerleader. For her mom, you know?"

They walked over to where Buffy was standing by the edge of the quad.

"Amy is really upset guys. I don't know how to cheer her up."

"We could invite her to eat brownies, my parents are out of town, we can make as many as we want." Buffy shook her head.

"I already asked her, she didn't want to." Okay, now he was feeling really guilty. An Amy that refused brownies was a depressed Amy. He didn't know her nearly as well as Willow, but he did know that much.

"Look, I'm really sorrow about the way I spat that out. I really did think alternate was a special position like flier or linebacker."

"It's alright Xander, it's really more of a popularity contest after a point, and I haven't made much headway into the popular crowd in the week I've been here."

"Well," Xander started, hoping to lighten the mood, "that just goes to show that cheerleading isn't an actual sport. Good ol'e American meritocracy is the way to go. This is the chance for revolution people! Show off some Slayer backflips or something, show those aristocrats their proper place." Buffy gave him a small, but beautiful, smile, and his stomach flip flopped when he saw her wearing the bracelet he gave her when she moved some loose strands of golden hair behind her ear.

"Nah, that's okay. Hey, can you tell Giles I'm skipping training today since nothing weird has happened. I promised my mom I'd help her unload stuff for her gallery after school."

"Sure thing." He'd been meaning to catch the British librarian alone anyway.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of boredom and insults. The insults being from Larry and Cordelia, who both failed yet again to add originality to their verbal, and in Larry's case very physical, slanders. When the Bell of Freedom finally rang at three, Xander and Willow parted ways. Willow heading toward computer club, and himself to the library. He found Giles in the back room of the tier sorting through mounds of books. He contemplated knocking but dismissed it when he figured the verbal approach would be much more satisfying. He was proven correct when Giles stumbled forward, barely catching himself, at the sound of his name. Xander watched Giles stand back up and straighten his glasses, inwardly guffawing at the tweed clad cliché.

"Xander, what, what can I do for you?"

"Got a message from Buffy. She's heading home to help her mom since nothings turned up on the Amber front."

Giles cleaned his glasses unnecessarily before resuming his task of stacking books, though this time the books landed with an angry thump instead of a gentle pap.

"That is the third time this week! Buffy is the Slayer, she has certain responsibilities that she must take seriously. She could at least tell me this information in person so I could try and dissuade her instead of sending a lackey."

"Hey!" Lackey? Now that was offending.

Giles, seemingly remembering he was not the only one in the room looked suitably chastised.

"I'm sorry Xander, that was very rude of me and out of line. It's just been a very trying day, and I too have not found any more helpful information on spontaneous combustion." Giles let out a long sigh. "Thank you for telling me Xander, you can go."

"Actually, there's something I've been meaning to ask you Mr. Giles."

"Yes?"

"You've been teaching Buffy how to use weapons and such right? Well," Xander hesitated for just a moment. This was it. He made sure to look Giles straight in the eyes to show him just how serious he was. "I was wondering if you could teach me too."

Giles was silent for a long moment, staring at Xander, and Xander made sure to not look away. He'd been thinking long and hard about this. He was next to useless at research, and he certainly didn't have superpowers, but he could still fight. He'd even settle for playing bait once in a while if it meant he was contributing to the group. Xander had promised himself a long time ago that useless was one thing he would never let himself be. He'd seen first hand what that was like and his insides shuddered at the thought of becoming just like Tony Harris.

"Xander, the support you and Willow have been offering Buffy since you've found out the truth is very helpful, and much appreciated, but I cannot condone letting you get further involved."

"But—"

"It is Buffy's responsibility to fight evil alone, and I, I am afraid her having to watch out for you on the battlefield would only get you both killed. Now, even if I did think training you was a good idea, I still wouldn't. My responsibility is training the Slayer and recording her life for future generations of Watchers and Slayers. I simply do not have the time to train anyone other than Buffy adequately in the ways of combat."

* * *

It was hard to believe that just adding hair to a heated solution of mercury and nitric acid would make a witchfinding potion. It made no logical sense in terms of chemistry but just like… like _magic_ it worked. Willow was both horrified and amazed at the magic she had seen the day before. Giles had deducted that they were dealing with a witch when Cordelia's eyes turned an opaque white during her Driver's Ed lesson, effectively blinding her and almost killing everyone in the car. A few hours later, Lishanne Davis' mouth completely disappeared during chem class. Willow suppressed a shudder, she'd seen that one happen, and she knew the nightmares she'd been having since Jesse died would now be filled with mouthless faces. It was difficult to believe that sweet, kind, brownie eating Amy was the witch that had done all these horrible things. But the evidence was stacked against her, the potion turned blue when Buffy spilled it on Amy, unless it was a false positive. Could false positives even happen with magic potions?

Buffy said she would meet with her and Xander between cheer practice and the basketball game that night, but they had decided to come early and have Buffy's back since she might be the next victim now that she was on the team. It was a decision she quickly became glad of, for when she and Xander entered the gymnasium they noticed Buffy was acting a little…off.

"Willow! Xander! My buds are here! I love my buds! Hi!" A gleeful Buffy was bouncing excitedly and waving her poms, and receiving no love from her fellow spirit leaders.

"Is it me, or is Buffy a little looped?" Willow shared a worried glance with Xander.

"We'd better get her out of there!"

But Willow could not for the life of her figure out a plausible excuse to give Joy as to why they needed Buffy to leave. Unfortunately Buffy provided the excuse for them. The super powered Slayer accidently overthrew Joy across the room and into the padded gym wall while practicing an assisted cartwheel.

"Did I do that?" Buffy asked.

Willow was almost afraid Joy would catch on fire the way she was looking at the loopy Buffy.

"You are _so_ out of here!" Joy exclaimed as she pushed Buffy back toward her and Xander who managed to catch her before she hit the floor.

"It's not her fault!" This was so unfair. Cheerleading was something Buffy really wanted to do and Amy was taking that away!

"She's on medication!" Xander added.

"What?" Buffy asked confusedly. But Joy was not convinced by their feeble excuses for Buffy's bizarre behavior.

"Well obviously not enough. Who's our next alternate!" She shouted. They watched Joy spin around to find Amy, poms ready, and oh so conveniently there. "Oh. Amy, you just made cheerleader."

"No, no, no!" Buffy butt in. "You don't want her, she's a wi-"

"A wise choice indeed." Xander finished, covering Buffy's mouth with his hand. Together they pushed and pulled Buffy out of the gym and into the hallway, supporting her as her steps became more unstable. They needed to get Buffy to the library quick. The other victims were attacked in a physical way, maybe the spell on Buffy would be easier to reverse.

"She's a witchy!" Buffy said to them, probably wanting them to agree with her.

"Buffy."

"I just got kicked off the team, didn't I?" She asked them.

"I don't think it was your fault." Xander said, trying to assure her.

Buffy gave him a wide smile in response and leaned closer to him, putting most of her weight on him, and out of Willow's arms.

"Hmm! I know you don't! That's cause you're my friend! You're my Xander-shaped friend!" Willow had to make a small effort to squash the jealousy that rose up in her when Buffy leaned her head on _her_ Xander's shoulder. What kind of person did it make her, to be jealous over a Buffy that wasn't in her right mind? "Do you have any idea while I love you so Xander?"

Ok. This had to stop.

"We gotta get her to a-" But Xander stopped her with a held hand.

"Let her speak!"

"I'll tell you! You're not like other boys at all!" Willow's stomach clenched harshly. Buffy wouldn't. She knew how much she liked Xander.

"Well-" Xander started bashfully, only to be cut off by Buffy.

"You are totally and completely one of the girls!" The Slayer turned back to Willow happily. "I'm that comfy with him." Willow couldn't help giving Buffy a wide smile, the tension easing from her body. And though she didn't want to admit it, she felt quite pleased with this turnaround for Xander. It was the comeuppance he deserved for calling her a guy.

"That's great." Despondence seeped from Xander's tone.

"Any other guy," Buffy continued, "who'd give me a bracelet, they'd" she paused her speech to make her face grimace, "wanna date me. And be like a…Oh, I don't feel so good." Without a pause she collapsed against them both, and the sudden clamminess of her skin increased Willow's worry.

Together they carried the unconscious girl toward the library, grateful it was a Saturday and the hallways were empty of students and staff. They carefully laid her in an armchair when they reached their destination and quickly called for Giles, who was in the backroom.

"My goodness! What happened?"

"Amy put Buffy under a spell!" Willow quickly explained Buffy's symptoms to him as he checked her over, and let out a sigh of relief when he managed to rouse her.

"Her bracelet is gone." Xander whispered.

"What?"

"The bracelet I gave Buffy for luck with the tryouts is gone."

"Yes, um, Amy must have stolen it to use in her spell."

"Uhh. Why is it so hot?" Willow reached over to feel Buffy's forehead but quickly retracted her hand at the intense heat and sweat she felt. "Buffy, you're burning up!"

"Xander, there are some cloths under the sink in the bathroom, can you soak it with cold water please and bring it here?" Giles asked as he continued to check his charge over, occasionally checking one of his books and matching symptoms.

"We gotta get her to a hospital!" Willow said, after Xander came back.

"They can't help her. This is a bloodstone vengeance spell. Hits the body hard like a, a quart of alcohol, and then it e-eradicates the, uh, immune system."

"A vengeance spell, like she's trying to get even with Buffy?" Xander questioned.

"Cause she knows I know she's a witch." Buffy explained, sounding exhausted.

"The others she just wanted out of the running." Giles stated. "You she intends to, um…"

"Kill?" Buffy finished, though she didn't seem as surprised as Willow was at the idea. No! She knew Amy, she wasn't a killer! The other spells were nasty and scary but, like Giles had said, they were meant to get them out of the way! Though thinking it over, she realized that all three of the previous spells cast against Amber, Cordelia, and Lishanne could have easily resulted in death if it hadn't been for chance and circumstance. She didn't want Buffy to die. She was her friend and she'd already lost one far too recently. She didn't want to lose anyone ever again.

"How much time do we have?" She asked Giles, trying to keep the shake out of her voice.

"Oh, uh, I'm sure.."

"Truth." Buffy said. "Please."

Giles refused to look at the three friends as he answered. "Couple of hours, three at most."

A deadly silence followed his words for a moment, before Xander slammed his hand on the table.

"Well how do we reverse the spell?!"

"Well I, I've been researching that, and uh, we can reverse all the spells if um, we can just lay our hand on, on Amy's book." A book? All of this could be reversed with a book? That almost seemed too simple to be real.

"And if we can't get ahold of it?" Willow was almost too afraid to ask.

"Well, the other way is to cut the witch's head off."

A vivid image of Amy's severed head rolling away from her body filled her mind and left bile in the back of her throat. She never thought she'd grow up to be a murderer, though, Willow tried to reason, Amy wasn't exactly an innocent party in this. Was killing alright if it was for the greater good? Xander seemed to be all for the idea, and Willow supposed she'd be alright with it too, but only as a last resort. Buffy however, was surprisingly against it, given that it was her Calling to kill, which relieved Willow a bit. If Buffy was hesitant to kill, then there must be a good chance that Amy was still redeemable. She hadn't killed yet, and she was under a lot of parental pressure. There was a whole chapter devoted to how damaging parental pressure could be in one of the books her mother wrote about raising adolescents.

Buffy and Giles soon decided to head over to Amy's house and interrogate Mrs. Madison about Amy and to find the spellbook, telling herself and Xander to both stay safe and to keep an eye on Amy. She wanted to protest, being _away_ from Amy would be the safest, she wanted to see what a witch's lair was like, she _needed_ to keep Buffy in her sight to make sure she was okay. But she and Xander silently accepted their role. It was an unwanted duty, but it was necessary, and the sooner the Slayer and her Watcher came back, the sooner Buffy could be cured.

* * *

Giles inwardly cursed himself for his obtuseness. It had taken him three days and two victims to realize a witch was misusing their powers. His inner Ripper was surely laughing at him for not recognizing the dark arts he had once practiced. A youthful Ripper would have found the idea of a mother switching bodies with her daughter so she could relive her glory days as a cheerleader amusing and quite pathetic, but an older and much wiser Rupert found it pathetic and disgusting.

Catherine Madison was a vile and vain person, capable of performing the darkest of rituals if given the proper manuals and guidance, but thankfully she was entirely unaware of the raw power she held within her. The spellbook he'd found in her "sacred" space was middle grade, the spells in it were not permanently binding and it was a boon he was quite grateful for, it made reversing the spells much easier, only requiring an incantation instead of a potion for each of the victims and several days of observing rituals and complex incantations.

As he set up the few ingredients he needed for the incantation in the science lab he observed Amy, the real Amy, caring for a gradually worsening Buffy. His Slayer only had an hour more at most and the thought of losing her so soon was distressing, and he was determined to ensure her survival. His determination was mostly an effort to prove the Council wrong, but Buffy had also started to worm his way into his heart with her frustrating stubbornness and American colloquialisms. As an outcast among his fellow Watchers, due to wild youth as Ripper, he had been assigned to one of the few Slayers that had not been found and trained by the Council before her Calling. These untrained Slayers usually had a life expectancy's shorter than the average three years, and since Buffy Summers already had a year under her belt her expiration date was expected to happen sometime this year, perhaps a few months since she was stationed on an active hellmouth.

Buffy's previous Watcher, Merrick (God rest his soul!) had been something of a mentor to him after his reformation, treating him with kindness and gently keeping him on the right path toward his destiny, and making him perform penance for the dark deeds done in his youth. Together they had spent hours going over the Council's rules, with him explaining their importance and the reasoning behind each and every one of the guidelines he had chafed under as an adolescent. And although he was still wary of some of the old traditions, he understood that rules existed for a reason, and that many times they saved innocent lives from carelessness and foolhardiness.

'Buffy is nothing like Merrick.' He thought. But he recalled the last conversation he had had with the man before his murder. He'd said there was something special about Buffy, that she may last longer than any other Slayer in recorded history. That she was smart, creative, insightful, and most importantly she could think on her feet. Giles had seen some of her insightfulness and creativity in the field, but had yet to truly see what his old friend had seen in her, and perhaps he did want to see all these grand things supposedly hidden away in his Slayer, but that would be impossible if she didn't survive the hour.

"Right, here we go." And he started the invocation.

* * *

Dean had been waiting all day for a chance to grab Amy, but girls tended to travel in packs for a reason, and that was to deter predators. What these girls didn't realize was Amy Madison was the true wolf and they were all the sheep, Dean was just the friendly neighborhood hunter.

"GO SUNNYDALE! GO! GO SUNNYDALE! GO!"

Dean shifted uneasily in the corner of the filled gym, absently checking to make sure his Colt 1911 wasn't visible to any of the students. The Razorbacks were up by four shots but it was still the first half and anybody's game. He didn't go to games too often, preferring to work extra shifts at the garage if his time wasn't taken up with a hunt. School events were always too loud, too crowded, and too pointless to grab his attention for long.

He mentally went over his supplies again. Iron chain to suppress her magic, iron rounds to go in each limb if she escaped from the chain or he failed to secure her, and three stakes for extra protection from any vampires he may run into along the way. Dean hoped this could be resolved without a bullet ending up in Amy's head, she hadn't killed anyone yet and he was hoping he could persuade her to undue all her spells (which would be a whole lot easier if he'd found where she'd stashed her spellbook). But he wasn't putting much money on a happy ending, the witch was probably too far gone to care about anyone other than herself. Dean ignored the knot that had been growing in his stomach since Amy tested positive for magic. He had never killed a human before. Vampires, crazed werewolves, and mutant cats sure, but never a witch. His father had been hunting a witch when the police raided their motel room. _Come with us, _they said_. Put the shotgun down Dean. Put the knife away Sam. Your father can't hurt you anymore…_ Dad was rotting in Chino because of a witch, Amber's hands were almost too damaged to use anymore, Cordelia would never see again, Lishanne could no longer eat or breathe through her mouth, and then there was whatever she had done to Buffy. Tonight wasn't going to end with murder, it would end with justice. Burn, witch, burn.

"FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT! SUNNYDALE! SUNNYDALE! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"

Three of the cheerleaders were now lifting the witch into the air, further rousing the crowd into louder shouts and jeers toward the other team. God! The amount of school spirit was nauseating. He glanced toward the scoreboard to see how long till half time and instantly regretted it. Gasps rang through the gym, and when Dean looked toward the Sunnydale cheerleaders he saw that the witch had lost her balance during the lift and fell. Her face was dark and tense, something had pissed her off.

"Damnnit!" He'd placed himself by the girls locker room, betting she'd be the last to leave after the game, the perfect opportunity to get her alone. But the witch was currently running in the opposite direction, toward the school. Grabbing his duffel, he took a shortcut under the stands, deftly avoiding a horny couple, and reaching the gym doors shortly after Amy passed through.

"W-wait! I-I-I need to talk to you, I-I can help you!" Shit! Wimpy Rosenberg. The redheaded girl couldn't have picked a worse time to be nice to a sociopathic witch.

"Help me? With what?" The sorceress scathingly replied, starting to move around Willow. Dean unzipped his duffel, grabbing the iron chain, a plan forming in his mind.

"Uh, well, y'know, all your witchcraft! I, I know this really good cauldron!"

Wait, what? Wimpy Willow Rosenberg knew Amy was a witch? Too late did he notice Xander Harris sneeking behind the witch, probably intending to grab and pin her. Everyone knew Xander and Willow were friends which meant Willow was trying to stall so Xander could… Shit! Shit! Shit! They knew the _truth_ but they had no idea how to deal with it.

"Do you actually ride a broom?" Willow continued, but her stalling was useless. The witch knew Harris was behind her and she attacked him with a Darth Vader Choke Hold. Running as fast as he could, chain in both hands, Dean tackled the witch and pinned her to the floor.

"That's solid iron, you bitch! Try using your magic now."

"You!" she spat, as she struggled against his weight. "Let me go!"

"Dean! What?" The apparently Not-So-Wimpy Willow was helping Harris back up, and looking at him confusedly.

"Iron blocks magic, and here's a hint— if you want to do a witch hunt, don't half ass it! This bitch was about to kill you!"

"Well sorry Mr. Expert," Xander huffed, "we were just stalling so Giles and Buffy had time to undo her spells!"

"Buffy and who—OW! Son of a Bitch!" The witch, while flailing beneath him, had managed to knee him uncomfortably close to his private area. The moment of pain caused him to let go, which was all the opportunity she needed to wiggle free of the chain and run down the hall and around the corner.

"Sympathies, man." Xander said as he helped him up.

"Come on!" Willow urged. "Amy's heading to the science lab!" The three of them ran as fast as they could toward the lab, and Dean was surprised Willow and Xander were mostly keeping up with him. They found Amy cutting through the door with the fire axe, chopping away with an unnatural strength. Dean pulled his gun from his waistband (ignoring Willow's muffled "eep!" when she saw the weapon) flicked the safety off and pushed the hammer down. The witch paused when she realized a fire arm was pointed her.

"Didn't you're daddy ever teach you not to play with guns? Oh, that's right, he's in jail! Another perfect example of why men are all losers!"

"My dad's in jail because he killed a witch. Looks like I'm about to do the same tonight. Like father, like son I guess."

The witch sneered at him, glancing back and forth between the damaged door and his gun. Seemingly making her decision, she turned back to the door and raised her axe high.

"Like bullets can harm me—" A bright white light enveloped the girl, and when the light receded a confused look appeared upon her face.

"What? Oh my God! You have a gun!"

"Stop screwing around, Amy!" Xander shouted. "Those bullets will kill a witch just as quickly as they'd kill me." Xander, seeming to second guess himself, moved closer to Dean and quietly asked. "They will kill her right? You're not bluffing?"

"No! I'm not a witch! It's my mom! She did a spell to switch our bodies! Mr. Giles just undid it!" Amy's mom pulled a Freaky Friday? It would explain the white light.

Several thuds sounded from within the science room, drawing everyone's attention. Amy let out a sharp gasp.

"My mom's in there with Giles and Buffy!" That wasn't good.

Together, Xander and Dean knocked the rest of the door to the science lab down, and found the room trashed and Buffy wrestling on the floor with an older woman. A man Dean vaguely recognized as the school librarian was passed out behind Dr. Gregory's desk.

"Willow! Check on, Giles was it?" The redhead gave a short nod and maneuvered her way around the debris toward the unconscious man.

The cat fight was interrupted when the woman, Amy's mom probably, and Buffy heard his directive.

"You!" Shouted the witch, the _real_ witch, upon seeing her daughter in the doorway. "You brat!"

Dean and Xander moved slightly in front of Amy, Dean with his gun raised and Xander armed with a table leg he'd just picked up. Amy raised the axe still in her hands in a threatening motion.

"Mom! Please!" The witch raised her hand and the axe flew from Amy's hands, nearly hitting the boys protecting her, into the witch's own grip.

"How dare you raise your hand to your mother! I gave you birth! I gave up my life so you could drag that worthless carcass around and call it living!" The witch swung the axe down hard on the closest standing lab table. "You've never been anything but trouble. I'm going to put you where you can't make trouble again!"

"Hey!" Buffy shouted. And Dean watched, amazed, as she pushed the witch across the room with a single punch. "Why don't you grow up Ms. Has Been?"

The witch, upon picking herself up, started the spell she had earlier threatened, her eyes turning black as she chanted.

"I shall look upon my enemy! I shall look upon her, and the dark place will have her soul!"

Awesome. They were all going to die via magic spell. What a great thing for Sammy to put on his tombstone! He desperately tried to rack his brains for a solution, but the only plan that seemed plausible to him was shooting her, which was a bad idea. Interrupting a spell before it was finished, especially when it was evil mojo like this, tended to result in bad side effects, and a lotta death.

"Corsheth, take her!" The spell flew from the witch's hands straight toward Buffy, Dean, Amy, and Xander. Buffy suddenly kicked high and hooked her leg, knocking down a pole that was supporting a dissecting mirror above their heads. The spell hit the mirror and rebounded, hitting its caster, who gave a final scream of terror before disappearing.

* * *

The group, barring Amy, gathered in the library after Giles woke up. The poor girl was shaken up over the ordeal her mother had put her through and thought it best that she report her mother's "disappearance" to the police as soon as possible.

Buffy was relieved Catherine Madison hadn't seriously injured any of her friends, and was surprised to find out this was partly due to Dean Winchester's intervention outside the gym. Needless to say she was dying of curiosity.

"How'd you know that Amy, er, Mrs. Madison was a witch?"

"Cause I'm a hunter." Dean said, making eye contact with her. "And I'm guessing you're the Slayer."

"What! No! I'm not the Slayer, I don't even know what a Slayer is."

"You've got super strength, mad kung fu skills, and this is the Hellmouth. You're either Xena or the Slayer."

Great. Secret identity not so secret it seemed. Dean was like the fifth person to figure it out since she moved to Sunnydale. The Masters' lackey's so didn't count.

"Fine, I'm the Vampire Slayer. She who has no social life! And I still don't understand how a deer hunter knows about witches and slayers."

"I, I believe he means demon hunting." Giles clarified, Buffy pitied him a little as he winced slightly at the ice pack he was holding to his head.

"Hunters are a rather crude and reclusive bunch, ah, no offence meant Dean." Dean didn't seem too bothered at all by the insult though, he just shrugged in response as if saying 'Hey! You're right. We _are_ crude, what with our big guns and big ego's.' "Though," her Watch continued, "some are rather e-effective in, um, policing the demon populace in an area without a slayer. But I must say that you're rather young to be a hunter."

"It's kind of the family business. My dad's a hunter, so I am too."

"So you're just a regular guy that fights supernatural monsters. They left that job out of the flier last career day." Xander quipped.

"Yeah, well, the job should be easier now that the Slayer's in town. I've been wondering why the vamp activity's been so quiet this week, seems you've really put the fear of you into this town. Kinda reminds me of the bedtime stories my dad used to tell my little brother about you to help him sleep." Willow perked up a little at this.

"Do you really think the monsters will stay away now that Buffy's here?"

"Hell no! The fuglies are probl'y just regrouping, if anything there'll be _more_ monsters to kill." There was much enthusiasm in Dean's tone, which baffled Buffy a bit. Was he genuinely _excited_ about more monsters?

"You don't seem too frightened by that idea." Xander stated.

"Why should I be? With a different monster every week and plenty of jobs in town, Sunnydale is like a hunter's paradise!" Xander grimaced and Giles started cleaning his glasses ferociously while Willow just groaned and laid her head down on the table. It was a sentiment Buffy shared.

"What?" Dean said. "I'm a glass half full kinda guy."

* * *

"Sammy! You've got to hear about the girl I met today!"

"It's Sam, Dean. And I'm really not in the mood to hear about another one of your conquests."

"Naw, man! It's not like that. This girl's The Slayer."

"_The_ Slayer?"

"Is there any other kind?"

"The Slayer's in Sunnydale! Wow! What's she like?"

"Hot, blonde, and kickass."

"_Dean._"

"Okay, alright! She's fifteen, a sophomore, and she just transferred from LA."

"Are you gonna be hunting with her form now on?"

"Yeah, Sammy. I think I am."


	2. No Room For A Stranger

Disclaimer: This is my fanfiction. I don't own the real thing.

Warning: All chapters are self-edited so read at your own risk. Constructive Criticismis welcomed. Spoilers for all seasons of Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Chapter 2: No Room For A Stranger

_The sky was dark and fire was everywhere. Two men stood on either side of the grand battlefield._

_Between them laid the dead, who were too numerous to count, and the two men's armies were continuing to battle. She looked to behind her and saw that she too had an army. Every Slayer that was and ever would be was armed and ready. They were waiting for her orders but she didn't know what to tell them. The Slayers walked away from her. Some joined the left, others the right, very few stayed by her side._

_The white suited man smiled at her. "After-_

"Buffy, wake up. You're having a nightmare." Buffy opened her eyes to find her mother hovering over her. She groaned and turned to look at her alarm clock. 8:15. Way too early for a Sunday.

"Do you remember what you were dreaming?" Buffy frowned as she thought. She remembered the dream had felt intense, but other than that…

"Something about a tacky suit?" Joyce's warm laughter filled Buffy with happiness. It had been a long time since she'd heard her mother laugh, what with the divorce, and the moving, and having a problem child for a daughter.

"Only you would have a nightmare about a fashion faux pas. Hey, I was thinking we could spend the day together, make up for all the fights we had last week." A mom day sounded nice. After the drama with Amy and her mom yesterday, shopping, movies, and pedicures seemed like the perfect antidote.

"Sounds great mom."

"Good. I've got blueberry pancakes waiting downstairs, so go get ready." Joyce gave her a quick peck on the forehead before leaving her room. Buffy swiftly performed her morning routine, chose a cute outfit, and headed downstairs. The kitchen table held two plates of blueberry pancakes with a side of strawberries, and a small gravy bowl of warm chocolate syrup.

"Wow! Martha Stewart wants her recipe back!" Buffy said after tasting her pancakes. They were just like she remembered them, slightly crunchy outside with a warm, fluffy middle. Her mom hadn't made these since she was 12.

"Well," Joyce said, as she brought the coffee and orange juice to the table, "it's a new week and I thought we could start fresh. We've been so distant with each other lately, and I remembered how much you used to love my pancakes so I thought 'Why not?'"

Distant was putting it nicely. There wasn't much they could talk about when ninety percent of her life revolved around slaying.

"So how's your gallery going? I remembered you said you were hoping for a big opening."

"Oh, it went good. I think my expectations on the turnout were a little high, Sunnydale isn't Los Angeles after all, but Mayor Wilkins stopped by. He is such a nice man, and he really has a vision for this town's future. What about you? Any cute boys I should know about?"

Well there was Angel and Dean, but she wasn't about to talk about them with her.

"There's this really cute guy named Owen in my math class. A lot of girls like him though, he's the dreamy loner type of guy. Then there's Mark from-"

* * *

"Yes, Mr. Greenham, I'm looking for information on a hunting family, surname W-I-N-C-H-E-S-T-E-R…No, they're not from the United Kingdom, Charles." Giles, feeling quite frustrated, wiped his glasses clean for the fifth time in the hour he'd been on the phone. "They're American…What do you mean the Council has no record of American hunters! Eight slayers have been Called here since 1960 and in all that time the Council hasn't done a single catalogue?...The Men of Letters did a census in 1950? Well, that's very helpful Charles, seeing as that organization is extinct!...Yes, I know hunters are notoriously difficult to keep track of, but that is no excuse for—No, no, I'm not being difficult! There's no need to involve Mr. Travers, but this lack of information is making my job very difficult and I highly suggest the Council make a catalogue of hunters for the American continent!...Yes, I would like the 1950 catalogue faxed over as soon as possible…Yes. Thank you. Goodbye!" Giles finished, as he slammed the receiver down. He paused to take a few deep breaths to keep himself collected. It wouldn't do to have anyone walk in on him in a rage.

Sometimes the Council was beyond infuriating! Really, no catalogue whatsoever for the whole American continent! According to Charles Greenham (a man who's high pitched voice he had always found grating), the Watcher's Council barely had any presence south of Bolivia and the vast majority of Brazil and Peru. Did it not matter to them that the United States held two hellmouths, one of which was active? Did they believe that the hellmouth on Easter Island and the rest of southern America became inconsequential when the Warlocks of Brita moved the mystical convergence almost four thousand kilometers away from the coast of modern day Chile? It was stupidity like this that almost had him longing for the days of Ripper.

Buffy pranced into the library a half hour later, on time for once, and looking well recovered from her ordeal with that vile witch two days ago.

"Buffy, I'd like to speak with you about Dean."

"What about?" She asked, as she made herself comfortable on the study table.

"Well, I-I don't think it would be very wise to put much faith in Dean and his abilities for the moment. Hunters aren't known for being the most trustworthy, they're, they're just as likely to try and kill you as they are to ally with you."

"Kill me! Why would he do that? We're on the same side!"

"Yes, well, your powers come from a supernatural source, and some radicals may consider you to, um, to not be human."

"But, Dean didn't seem like that! He thought me being the Slayer was pretty cool!" Buffy said, sounding distressed.

The young hunter did seem to think of the Slayer in a positive light.

"Even so, I believe it would be best to, uh, err on the side of caution. At least until we know more about his character and capability, I, uh, propose a trial period, no patrolling or combat, research only."

A frown creased his Slayer's face as she thought it over.

"I guess that's alright. I'm not too keen on patrolling with a stranger anyway."

* * *

"Dean, I'm not going to accept this homework assignment."

"Why not?!" This was beyond annoying! Dr. Gregory should be grateful he even turned in the assignment.

"Because I know you can do better. This work is in the C borderline D range and I know your smart enough to be a strait A student. You're going to have a hard time getting into a good college with these kinds of grades."

College. That was a good one.

"Yeah, college isn't really in my future." He told the science teacher.

"If money is the issue, there are many financial aid opportunities available. Your father was a marine wasn't he? The military will help pay for college in exchange for your service. UC Sunnydale has a ROTC program."

"Look teach, I'm just not interested in higher education. I already know what I'll be doing when I graduate next year, and college isn't it." He'd had a plan for years. Graduate, get custody of Sam, work full time at George's garage and hunt a little on the side until Sam graduated. Then they'd shag ass to Chino and pull a jail break.

"Just think about it Dean. You would be a good engineer, you could design engines instead of fix them up. In the meantime, redo this assignment and turn it in to me tomorrow." Dean took back his paper and headed out the door, a dark cloud over his head.

He didn't have time for this. He was working till eight at the garage, and he'd been planning to catch Buffy on patrol that night. In the four days he'd known the Slayer, she and her Watcher had steadfastly refused to let him help, saying it was Buffy's duty, not his. Instead he'd been told to sit quietly with Xander and Willow as they watched Buffy train and helped Giles with research. He'd been hunting on the Hellmouth for four years with almost no help, like hell he was going to be sidelined when he'd clocked more field time than Buffy and Giles combined.

He was on his way to the main doors, fully intending to skip the rest of the school day when Cordelia Chase blocked his path.

"Cutting class again, I see."

"Get out of my way Cordy."

"Is it true? Are you really hanging out with Buffy Summers and her loser friends?" Dean rolled his eyes at her candor. The only redeeming quality about Cordelia, besides her beauty, was her honesty, and that was often a double edged sword.

"So what if I am? She piss you off or something?"

"More like she's a major freak. She threatened _me_ with a weapon, you know. You need to be careful. Your social status is on the brink of sinking from cool to pariah, and it's only the goodness of my heart and our history that's keeping it afloat."

"Weapon?"

"Some kind of stake. The wooden kind, not the grilling kind." Dean chuckled a bit, imagining the scenario.

"Hey! It's not funny. I took the time out of _my_ free period to warn you about her, but if you're just going to laugh at my efforts there is nothing keeping me from cutting you off!" Dean instantly sobered. He'd saved her father's life last year from a vampire attack, though the man thought it was a gang war, and since then he'd been receiving monthly "gifts" of one hundred dollars. Dean had refused the money at first, but Cordelia convinced him to accept it when she found out he wanted custody of Sam. Dean needed that money if he wanted to put down a six month payment on an apartment when he turned eighteen in two months.

"Look, I'm sorry." He tried to placate. "I didn't mean to laugh at you, but you've got Buffy all wrong. Besides, stakes are a basic self-defense weapon, like pepper spray! I'd carry one too if I were you."

Cordelia scowled at his perceived joke.

"Ugh! Look, if you want to ruin your social life, what little of one you have anyway, be my guest! But just know that if it sinks any lower, we are no longer associated!" As quickly as Cordelia came, Cordelia left, and Dean was left alone in the hallway.

Dean swallowed, his throat feeling dry. He had a good amount saved from the Chase's and his job at George's Mechanics, but if Cordelia carried out her threat…she wouldn't of course. Cordelia was many things, but heartless wasn't one of them. Even so, he'd start penny pinching even more than he already was, maybe start hustling cash for profit instead of fun. His dad had taught him to plan for all possible situations and Dean had just found he'd become uncomfortably reliant on the Chase family's generosity.

* * *

He could smell her the moment he entered the room. Her scent a tantalizing mix of graveyard dirt and fresh spring flowers. And blood. Fresh, flowing, _living_, Slayer blood. This was a bad idea, making contact with her would only increase his demon's thirst for her, but his human side couldn't seem to help itself. Guilt rose up in him. She was a child by modern standards, meaning his love for her was wrong on levels other than the fact he was a vampire and she a Slayer, but the long buried part of him that was Liam could only consider her a grown woman. He caught her eye, despite the multitude of meat ('People' he admonished himself 'They're people'). She looked beautiful.

What was he doing! Stalking into The Bronze, searching her out like a predator! Oh no! She was coming closer. What was he going to tell her again? What if she didn't believe his warning? He was just an untrustworthy stranger to her. Angel briefly wished for Liam's, or even Angelus' confidence with women.

"Well! Look who's here!" Buffy's voice rang like a bell through his head. 'Quick.' His human mind told him. 'Respond with something clever!'

"Hi."

"I'd say it's nice to see you, but then we both know that's a big fib."

He knew it. She hated him. 'Make her change her mind about you.' Liam whispered. 'We can have a lot of fun with her!' Angelus screamed. No. She didn't have to like him. She was probably better off _not_ liking him. He would help her from the shadows like he promised himself he would, nothing more.

"I won't be long."

"No, you'll just give me a cryptic warning about some exciting new catastrophe, and then disappear into the night. Right?" Did he come across as cryptic? He was just trying to help her in as few words as possible. The quicker stuff was said the quicker she could take care of the problem. He was about to say as much when her smooth, milky skin distracted him. That wouldn't do.

"You're cold."

"You can take it." Angel took off his jacket so he could cover her bare arms.

"I mean, you look cold."

"A little big on me." She said, as she examined the leather.

She looked tinier and more vulnerable in his jacket, but Angel felt oddly satisfied seeing her in it. Buffy suddenly reached for his left arm and gently traced her fingers on the scars Claw had left him earlier that night. He moved slightly back, out of her reach. Claw was the reason he had come here in the first place.

"I didn't pay attention."

"To somebody with a big fork?" Angel smiled. She was funny, he liked that in a woman.

"He's coming."

"The Fork Guy?"

"Don't let him corner you. Don't give him a moment's mercy. He'll rip your throat out." There. He'd warned her. She was prepared now.

"Okay, I'll give you improved marks for that one. Ripping throats out, it's a strong visual, it's not cryptic!" Buffy was funny, but she wasn't taking the threat seriously. That was fine, she was more than a match for Claw. And she was still young, responsibility to her duty would come in time, Angel would just have to make sure she lived that long.

"I have to go." He quickly left the hangout, and despite being out the door, he still heard Buffy's last words clearly.

"Sweet dreams to you, too."

Sweet dreams? He could only remember having nightmares, but he took Buffy's words to heart. Maybe one day his atonement would be complete and his conscience would let him have an hour of restful sleep. 'Only after I'm gone.' Angelus whispered to him. His eternal tormentor was right. Rest would only come after he was dust in the wind, but until then, he'd help Buffy all he could. Her odds of surviving The Master were already looking better now that John Winchester's son was working beside her.

* * *

Xander could see them arguing in the distance. Satisfaction rolled through him. It seemed Dean Winchester wasn't so suave with the ladies after all. His approach was unnoticed to the group, and Xander dearly hoped he could overhear something that would turn his good day into a great day. Unfortunately Sunnydale's biggest dick saw him coming when he turned around in a mini fit of frustration.

Dean had been hanging around the library, generally being a nuisance, ever since that situation with the non-evil and non-witchy Amy. It was like he thought they'd automatically let him into their little group just because he supposedly knew all about vampires and other evilness.

"Mornin'!" Xander said to the girls and Giles. He skirted around a frowning Dean and stopped at Willow's side of the bench she and Buffy shared. He frowned a little when he saw Buffy was still wearing Angel's jacket, but didn't let it deter him from the news he was anxious to relay.

"Guess what I just heard in the office? No Dr. Gregory today! Ergo, those of us who blew off our science homework aren't as dumb as we look." He reached down and closed Willow's book for her. No studying what needn't be studied.

"What happened, is he sick?" Buffy asked. Xander shrugged in response.

"They didn't say anything about sick, something about missing."

"He's missing!?" Buffy and Dean said together. Xander grit his teeth a bit.

"That's not good. When people go missing around here they tend to stay missing." Dean continued.

Huh, Xander hadn't thought about the implications 'missing' past no homework. Though considering all that had happened in the past month he really should of. Good day suddenly not so good.

"I hope nothing's wrong." The genuine concern on Buffy's face only increased the dickish feeling spreading through him.

"He's one of the only teachers that doesn't think Buffy's a felon." Willow explained to him, proverbially hitting the nail on the head and driving his guilt home.

"I'm really sorry, I'm sure he'll—" The most beautiful woman in the world was walking toward him. Long, almost endless legs. Two perfect buds half hidden beneath her blazer. A seductive face with lips that just screamed 'Kiss Me'.

"Could you help me?" The beauty asked.

"Uuuuh, yes!" Xander said. He'd do whatever this woman asked. He pointedly ignored Buffy and Willow's snickers, Dean's eye roll, and Giles' glasses cleaning.

The beautiful woman smiled. "I'm looking for Science 109."

Science 109. Science 109. Science 109. Such long legs.

"Oh! It's um…I go there every day!" Xander smiled, hoping she'd see his memory blunder as a joke, and his insides fluttered and leaped when she laughed pleasantly.

He turned toward the girls and pleaded in a non-whisper. "Oh God, where is it?!" The girls unhelpfully shrugged, and Xander was desperate enough to turn to Giles, or even Dean for help when Blayne Mall walked up to them.

"Hi, I'm Blayne Mall. I'm going there right now. It's not far from the varsity field where I took All-City last year." Xander saw red, and it was only his fear of making himself look a bigger fool that kept him from charging that smug looking Blayne.

When Blayne and the substitute finally left, the fog in his mind lifted and he saw clearly the blunder he had made.

"It's funny how the Earth never opens up and swallows you when you want it too."

Dean put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Xander had to fight the urge brush it off.

"Trust me man, hooking up with a teacher isn't as hot as it sounds." Willow let out a small gasp.

"You slept with a teacher!"

The bell rang.

"Yes, well. I, uh, best get back to the library. I suggest you four run off to where you're supposed to be as well."

Xander picked up his bag and ran to his first class, knowing he would spend the next few hours dreaming about the new substitute teacher.

When biology finally came Xander learned the name of the beautiful woman who had become so enchanted with him. Natalie French.

'All the teachers should be as hot as Ms. French.' Xander thought, watching Natalie pacing the room open mouthed as she lectured on the praying mantis. Xander dully noted that this was the most he'd ever learned in a classroom, and boy was he learning.

"The California Mantis lays her eggs, and then finds a mate…" Oh God! She was looking right at him! Xander crossed his ankles, thankful for the table. "…to fertilize them. Once he's played his part, she covers the eggs in a protective sack—"

Xander was the second to sign up for the one on one lessons with Natalie after school. He would have been the first if _Blayne_ hadn't cut in front of him.

"I wonder what she sees in me?" He said to the girls later in the lunch line.

"It's probably the quiet good looks coupled with a certain smoky magnetism."

Righteous indignation filled him when he saw Willow and Buffy exchange mirthful looks. His mood was momentarily turned to fury when he saw Dean laying it on thick with Aura the Cordette from the corner of his eye. He squashed the sudden anger down quickly. Dean might get Aura and Joy and maybe (hopefully not) Buffy one day, but it was Xander Natalie was coming on to, and today that was all that really mattered.

"Ms. French." He continued, wanting Willow and Buffy to see the seriousness in the situation.

"You two're probably a little young to understand what an older woman would see in a younger man."

"Oh, I understand." Buffy said. Xander smiled, once again feeling satisfied.

"Good."

"The younger man is too dumb to wonder why an older woman can't find someone her own age, and too desperate to care about the surgical improvements!"

"Surgical improvements?!" NO! It was a lie! His Beauty looked so natural and perfect!

"Well he is young." Willow said as she continued the unfriendly banter.

"And so terribly innocent!" How could he respond to this?

"Hey, those that can, do. Those that can't—" Xander paused to let out a sarcastic HaHa! "at those who…can do." Xander wanted to smack himself. His quip had started out good and ended so lame!

Blayne came up behind the three friends and started loading his tray with enough food to feed the whole track team.

"Gotta carb up for my one on one with Ms. French today. When's yours? Oh, right, tomorrow. You came in second, I came in first. Guess that's what they call natural selection." Xander managed to find a much better quip as the varsity player was leaving the lunch line.

"Guess it's what they call the rehearsal!" Yes, so much better. Xander chuckled to himself, inwardly praising his wit. "Rehearsal."

Xander ignored Cordelia once again appearing out of nowhere and bumping into Buffy in favor of contemplating his fruit options. Bruised apples or wrinkled oranges, what would go better with hotdog surprise? He gently squeezed the orange and was pleasantly surprised to still find it firm, the flesh of it still holding some zesty juice.

A scream Xander somehow recognized as Cordelia Chase's echoed through the cafeteria. Xander dropped his tray and ran behind Buffy and Willow toward the kitchen, and what he saw shocked him so much he forgot to be angry when Dean ran up behind him. The body of Dr. Gregory was stuffed in the fridge and his head was nowhere to be found. Xander looked away and forced himself to swallow the vomit in his mouth.

* * *

School was cancelled for the rest of the day, which surprised Willow slightly, students had been found dead on campus before but this was the first time in several years that a teacher had been found deceased on the premises and she suspected that the cancellation was more for the staffs benefit than the students. It didn't really matter, Willow was grateful all the same.

Willow, Buffy, and Xander had been in a state of shock after discovering the body, but Dean had jumped right in to establishing a perimeter to effectively keep other students away until Principle Flutie and the police arrived. Willow couldn't help but admire how he had kept his cool, it was like death didn't affect him. She witnessed Dean's steely gaze simultaneously warn the other students away and inspire Buffy to help him and hold in her tears for the poor teacher until the four of them had reached the safety of the library an hour later.

Now that she was away from the chaos of the cafeteria and the questioning policemen Willow forced herself to breathe. Dead bodies were becoming more and more common in her life and she couldn't afford to freeze like she had when Dr. Gregory was found. She needed to be stronger, more useful. Dread filled her gut, only to be overwhelmed by the sadness she felt at the passing of Dr. Gregory. She wondered if the cause of his death was human or supernatural, Buffy or Giles would know. Giles had helpfully loaned her some very interesting books on monsters and magic but she knew it would take her a very long time to catch up to them in knowledge. An idea struck her.

Willow gently tugged Dean away from the others as they mourned so they could speak more privately.

"What is it?"

Willow twisted her hair nervously.

"Well, you're pretty much an expert on this monster stuff right? I mean, you grew up with all this." A curious expression graced Dean's handsome face.

"I wouldn't exactly say expert, but yeah, I know a lot."

"I was wonderin' if you could tutor me— oh, and Xander too if he wants it."

A strange emotion flashed through Dean's eyes faster than Willow could name it, but she could tell from the rest of his body language that he wasn't too thrilled with the idea. She hurried to lay down her case before he could rebuff her.

"It's just Giles and Buffy are always so busy and it'd be so much easier and faster to learn if I had a real teacher along with all of Giles' books. And y'know I can't really fight like you and Buffy but I'm really good at research and I'm a quick study and—"

"Willow—"

"And I have to do my part to save people! I can't go back to how it was, I need to learn, and I need to help."

Dean's hands fiddled with the cuffs of his leather jacket as he thought it over, his eyes glazing a bit.

"I dunno, Xander doesn't seem to like me too much."

"He's just getting used to you, is all." Willow hurriedly said. "He's been having a hard time lately, it's nothing personal."

Dean frowned before giving an accepting nod.

"Fine," he sighed, "but you do everything I say and exactly how I say it during these tutoring sessions. I say jump you ask how high. Kapeesh?" Willow nodded determinedly.

"Okay, we'll start after this mess with Dr. Gregory is over. C'mon, those three are starting to look at us weird." The sadness in Willow's heart felt slightly lessened as they walked back to the now dry eyed Buffy, Giles, and Xander. Willow put on her mental thinking cap as she sat down and urged herself to think like a detective.

"Who would want to hurt Dr. Gregory?" She heard Dean let out a derisive snort. So it _was_ the supernatural.

"Don't you mean what?"

"A what? Are you sure it was a what, Mr. Expert?" Xander's tone was filled with something not unlike contempt. She silently wished her best friend would give Dean a chance.

Giles sighed sadly, and brushed a hand through his hair. "Yes, _what_ is far more likely. Dr. Gregory had no enemies among the staff that I'm aware of. He was a civilized man. I liked him."

Willow watched Dean hunch his shoulders as he leaned back against the study table, his face tense with thought.

"The neck looked like it'd been ripped. Like the head was torn off."

"Dean's right." Buffy added. "The neck didn't look completely severed, but I think I saw some cuts, maybe from a claw?"

"What else do we know?" Giles asked.

"Oh, not a lot. Um, he was killed here on campus. I'm guessing the last day we saw him." Buffy responded to her Watcher."

"How do you work that out?" Giles probed.

"He didn't change his clothes."

"This is a question that no one in particular wants to hear." Xander interrupted. Willow braced herself for what was sure to be a stomach flip. "What happened to the head?"

"If we're lucky it was dumped in the trash somewhere, better than some of the alternatives." Giles nodded in agreement with Dean.

"Angel!" Buffy shot up from her chair suddenly and started pacing around the table. "He warned me that something was coming."

"Wait, who?" Dean confusedly asked.

Willow thought back to last night at The Bronze when the handsome Angel gave Buffy his jacket and a cryptic clue. Was it already too late for Dr. Gregory by then, or could they have saved him if they'd taken the warning more seriously. A bit of guilt filled her. She and Buffy had spent the rest of the evening talking about how romantic Angel had been, giving Buffy his jacket. They had hardly talked at all about the reason he'd been there.

"Yes, yes he did, didn't he? I wish I knew what he meant. I've been trying to gather more information about the Master, our, uh, local vampire king. There was one oblique reference to a, a vampire who displeased the Master and cut his hand off in penance."

"Cut off his hand and replaced it with a fork?"

"I don't know what he replaced it with."

"Wait, wait, wait." Dean interrupted again. "An angel told you Captain Hook would start going around killing teachers?"

"His name's Angel." Willow helpfully explained.

"And I'm not sure this vampire was our killer." Giles said. "There was an incident two nights ago…" The librarian walked to the checkout counter to reference one of the newspapers. "Um, involving—"

"A homeless guy in Weatherly Park." Dean cut in. "I read that too. Totally different MO from what happened to Doc Gregory."

Willow looked over the paper Giles had handed to Buffy. _Severe dismemberment. Shredded organs. Any information please contact…_

"So there's something else out there?" Xander stated more than asked. "Besides Silverwareman? Oh, this is fun. Some paradise, huh, Dean." Dean just shrugged and started flipping through some of the books that were on the table beside him.

"Well unpleasant things do gravitate here." Giles said. "It's true, but, uh, we don't know there's anything besides this chap. He's still our most likely suspect."

"Where was that guy killed? Weatherly Park?"

"Buffy, I know you're upset, but this is no time to go hunting. Not until we know more. Please promise me you won't do anything rash."

"Cross my heart." Relief filled Willow at Buffy's words. She didn't want her friend to jump into a dangerous situation without all the information.

* * *

Buffy climbed over the fence into Weatherly Park and started her patrol. Darkness clothed her as she stalked through the park and let her instincts slowly unwind from the tight ball she kept them in.

"Shouldn't be out here at night little lady. Dangerous." A bum said to her before he moved on.

"Well, life's no fun without a little danger." Startled by this second voice, Buffy whirled around to find the unwelcome sight of Dean Winchester.

"Dean! What're you doing here?!"

"Uh, hunting a vampire." He said as he pulled out a stake to show her. Her eyes caught a bottle of holy water in his pocket and a sharp machete tucked into his belt.

"What, no gun?"

"Why would I bring a gun on a vampire hunt?" Buffy rolled her eyes in irritation. She briefly thought of ending her hunt before it had truly begun, but decided to roll with the punches. If Dean wanted to patrol with her she'd just have to push the message through that it was her destiny, not his.

"Look, Giles already told you. I don't want you patrolling with me."

"Hey, I've been walking these graveyards since I was fourteen! I know where the fledglings tend to hang, and which bars and shops are in the know when I need info. You'd be stupid to ignore my help."

"Well," Buffy said as she made sure a sleeping hobo had all four limbs, "how 'bout you tell me all that juicy intel and leave the rest to me?"

Dean grabbed her arm, frustration clear on his face.

"This is my job. It's my dad's legacy. Just cause you're the hotshot Slayer doesn't mean you get to do this job all by yourself. The world's too big for one person." Anger filled her as she yanked her arm away. He didn't understand.

They walked together in tense silence, each pretending the other didn't exist. When they came across some suspicious shrubbery Buffy moved it aside and the vampire they'd been searching for jumped out of a hidden manhole. She pushed Dean backward as she dodged a wide swing. She slammed her arm into its gut and back at its first opening, she dodged its sharp hand again and punched at its face, followed by a reverse round house kick to its jaw, determined to show him no mercy for what he'd done to Dr. Gregory. Dean threw his holy water on the vamp, causing it pain, and her time to pin it to the ground. Just as she was about to stake him flashlights caught the corner of her eye, distracting her from her purpose. Claw rolled out of her grasp and fled.

"Damn, it's the police." Buffy's blood ran hot with the need to kill.

"I can still catch him." She ran after the vampire, Dean not far behind. She saw Claw climb over the far fence and land behind a woman carrying groceries that she recognized as Natalie French. She knew she wouldn't be able to jump the fence in time to help the poor teacher and despair filled her as she and Dean helplessly watched through the fence bars. Ms. French turned to see her attacker and she felt Dean tense beside her. She opened her mouth to shout a warning when the one handed vampire hissed in fear and ran to the nearest manhole to hide in. Natalie French continued on her way, like nothing had ever happened. Buffy and Dean stared wide mouthed after her.

"That—" Dean swallowed, "was not normal."

* * *

Principal Flutie had tagged him on the way to American History and steered him toward the counselor's office. Apparently he needed to speak to a grief counselor because he saw the body of Dr. Gregory. Dean mentally grumbled to himself that this was one of the few times he'd rather be in class than out of it. He was the third on the bench waiting to see the wannabe shrink, after Mrs. Colby from the cafeteria and Cordelia Chase. It'd been painful in an annoying way to overhear Mrs. Colby weep and whine over her "trauma", and he was so not looking forward to Cordy talk and talk about herself to the counselor when her turn came.

After Cordelia entered the office Principal Flutie came by again, this time with a protesting Buffy.

"But I really, really don't—"

"No, you have to talk to the counselor and start the healing. You have to heal."

"But Mr. Flutie, I—"

"Heal!" Flutie walked off before she could protest more and Buffy sat down next to him, looking bummed. Dean shifted awkwardly as they glanced at each other before looking away. Not knowing what to say to the Slayer, Dean opted to stay silent. Buffy had made it pretty clear how she felt about him last night.

Cordelia's voice drifted through the open doorway.

"I don't know what to say, it was really…I mean, one minute you're in your normal life, and then who's in the fridge? It really gets to you, a thing like that. It was…let's just say I haven't been able to eat a thing since yesterday. I think I lost like, seven and a half ounces? Way swifter than that so called diet that quack put me on. Oh, I'm not saying we should kill a teacher every day just so I could lose weight! I'm just saying when tragedy strikes, we have to look on the bright side. You know?"

Ah, the brilliant mind of Cordelia Chase. He watched Buffy's features slowly turn incredulous at what she was hearing. Dean couldn't help but chuckle.

"Yeah, Cordy's roots run deep." Buffy gave him a small smile.

"I can't believe she said that." They quieted again to hear what Cordy had to say next.

"Like, how even used Mercedes have leather seats!" They both snorted quietly, trying and failing to give Cordelia and the counselor some semblance of privacy.

With the ice broken between them Buffy turned to face him more fully.

"Look, I'm sorry about last night. I was just really frustrated with what happened to Dr. Gregory, and I'm used to working by myself. It's already a huge strain to include Willow and Xander in my Slaying duties. Guess I'm not much of a team player, huh?"

Dean nodded in understanding. "Yeah, my dad is kinda like that too. He only works with people he's worked with before and knows he can trust. He can come across as a bit of a hard ass to people that don't know him. Anyway, it was kinda my fault too. I snuck up on ya and I lost my cool a bit. Sorry for grabbing you by the way." Buffy just waved him off, he was apparently already forgiven.

"I talked with Giles about what we saw, he was pretty put off that we hunted together, but he wants everyone to keep a closer eye on Miss French."

"Yeah, I started doing that on my own when I got to school today. Y'know Blayne Mall hasn't shown up for school yet, he was on a list to meet one on one with Ms. French yesterday." Worry creased Buffy's forehead.

"Maybe he just stayed home today."

"Maybe, but it's too early for authorities to be too concerned, twenty four hours and all that. We'll know more by the end of the day, his mom'll probably call the school by then if he really is missing."

"We're all meeting after school in the library again." Buffy offered. "And I have to get back to my biology class with her after this grief session is over. I'll brief everyone on any clues I pick up today there."

Dean let Buffy go ahead of him for her counseling session, she needed to get to her science class as soon as possible. His thoughts kept flying to his last conversation with Dr. Gregory the rest of the school day. He kept replaying it over and over, trying to determine whether the teacher had seemed nervous or stressed, had complained of cold spots, or anything out of the ordinary but kept coming up empty. He wished he'd been more appreciative of the teacher. His advice may have been unwanted and unneeded, but it would have been solid for anyone other than him. The doc had been a good guy.

He asked Buffy's Watcher if he could use the phone in the library after school and promptly headed to the checkout counter when Giles nodded yes.

He punched in his foster home's number and waited for Ms. Snell to pick up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, um, Nana, it's me, Dean."

"Dean, you're not staying out late again are you? You know how I feel about my kids coming home after dark Dean." He could clearly see her prudish face scowling at him over the telephone line.

"Yeah, I'm staying at school late to work on a project with the librarian. Just some volunteer hours for the school."

"Fine, just bring a note home from him. Oh, your social worker called. She's stopping by in a couple weeks to talk with you about your case. December 14th. Remember that."

"Yeah, thanks." Dean hung up and turned to see Buffy and Willow walking through the doors, chattering away.

"No, I'm not saying she craned her neck. We are talking full on Exorcist twist!"

"Ouch!" The redheaded girl exclaimed.

"And Blayne never showed up today and he had a one on one yesterday, something really freaky is going on with her. Hey Giles, Dean! Find anything new?"

"Um, I've not found any creature as of yet that strikes terror in a vampire's heart."

"Try looking at things that can turn their heads all the way around." Buffy suggested.

"Like the Exorcist twist?" Dean asked half sarcastically.

"Nothing human can do that." Giles frowned.

"No, nothing human. There are some insects that can. Whatever she is, I'm gonna be ready for her." Buffy spent the next half hour studying books on insects while Dean, Willow and Giles looked through the more classical monsters. Dean gave up in about fifteen minutes, he'd gone through his dad's journal again last night, and some of the books Uncle Bobby had lent him, the info they needed wasn't likely to be found in any of the Watcher's books. He started playing around with one of Giles' letter openers, flipping it around in his hand, and outwardly smirked when the pompous librarian gave him an annoyed glare.

Buffy soon came out of the book stacks holding up one of the books like it was the holy gospel.

"Dig this: 'The praying mantis can rotate its head 180 degrees while waiting for its next meal to walk by.'" The blonde slammed the book shut triumphantly. "Ha! Well c'mon guys, ha!"

"Well," Willow began uncertainly, "Miss French is sort of big. For a bug?"

"And she is, by and large, woman shaped." Giles added.

"Okay. Factoid one: Only the praying mantis can rotate its head like that. Factoid two: A pretty whacked out vampire is scared to death of her. Factoid three: Her fashion sense screams predator." Dean couldn't help but snort at that last fact.

"It's the shoulder pads." Willow agreed.

"Exactly."

"If you're right then she'd have to be a shape shifter or a perception distorter. On a helpful note, I had a chum at Oxford, Carlyle, advanced degrees in entomology mythology"

"Entoma-who?" Dean shared Buffy's opinion of big fancy words nobody used.

"Bugs and fairy tales." Giles clarified.

"I knew that." Buffy pretended.

"If I recall correctly, poor old Carlyle, just before he went mad, claimed there was some beast—"

The computer Willow was researching on beeped and she turned to look at them with a scared look. "Buffy, 911! Blayne's mom called the school. He never came home last night."

Shit. "Xander's next on the list for a one on one with that bitch." He should've insisted they didn't start researching till the kid was with them. If he was under some sort of thrall it'd be hard to reason with him to stay away from the substitute.

"Okay, don't panic." Buffy told Willow "I'll warn him, but can you hack into the coroner's office for me?" Willow nodded.

"Look for the autopsy on Dr. Gregory, I've been trying to figure out those cut marks on his neck and I think—"

"You think she bit his head off." Dean said with a gruesome understanding. Willow looked at him wildly with fear for Xander, and Buffy glared at him for his lack of tact. He shrugged apologetically, Sammy was the sappy one, not him.

Buffy quickly left the library to search for Xander, and while Giles placed a transatlantic call Dean watched Willow hack into the coroner's office, a little amazed that what she was doing was actually possible in real life and not just the movies.

Buffy returned shortly with the news that she saw Xander leave school, but that he seemed unreasonably attracted to the woman, and wouldn't listen to her warnings.

"Y'know, I've been thinking." He told Buffy. "If she's a shape shifter silver should do her in real quick, but if it's just an illusion we're gonna need something a lot stronger than silver."

"So we need to know for sure what kind she is before I go in for the kill."

"Why would silver only work if she's a shape shifter?" Willow asked from the computer.

Well, it wouldn't hurt to start those tutoring sessions a little early.

"Silver's a pretty soft metal, pretty useless unless you need it in a spell or to kill a shifter. Something about it being connected to the phases of the moon makes it pretty lethal to them."

"Okay, I got the coroner report, and…Ewww! It comes with color pictures." Buffy and Dean leaned closer to the screen to examine the close up of the neck.

"Yeah, those definitely look like teeth marks." Buffy checked her praying mantis book.

"It says here the praying mantis eats her pray starting with the head, starts the mating process the same way too."

"No, no, no! See? Xander's…I like his head. It's where you find his eyes, and his hair, and his adorable smile…"

Dean watched Buffy comfort the distraught girl and hoped Giles would finish his phone call quickly. When the librarian finally finished his call he explained to them that the creature was called a She-Mantis and that her delicacy of choice was young virgin men. Dean thought this was just another reason to promote fornication among teenagers, you were a lot less likely to end up eaten or sacrificed if you gave it up quickly.

"Virgins?" Buffy started uncomfortably. "Well, Xander's not a, uh, I mean, he's probably—"

"Gonna die!" Willow freaked and ran to the phone to call Xander's home.

"Okay, okay, so this thing is breeding and we need to find it and snuff it. Any tips on the snuffing part?"

"Uh, Carlyle recommends cleaving all body parts with a sharp blade."

"Slice and Dice." Buffy aptly said.

"Xander's not home!" Willow cried. "He told his mom he was going to his teacher's house to work on a science project. He didn't tell her where."

"See if you can get her address off the substitute rolls." Buffy instructed Willow. She turned to Giles. "And you need to record bat sonar, and fast!" Bat sonar?

"Bat sonar, right. What?"

"Bats eat them. The mantis hears sonar and its whole nervous system goes kaplooey!"

"Where am I going to find—"

"In the vid library? There's no books, but it's dark and musty, you'll feel right at home, go!" Buffy turned to him and sighed. "I guess we've got the armory." Dean nodded.

"I've got an extra machete in the Impala, but the length might be a bit long for you." Buffy and Dean headed toward Giles' weapon vault. "I'll use my own, give that one to Giles just in case."

* * *

Giles drove Buffy and Willow to Ms. French's house, with Dean following in his own car. Anxiety filled her the closer they got to the She-Mantis' house. What if they were too late?

She and Buffy jumped out of Giles' car as they reached the house and the watcher and hunter followed after they parked.

"What now exactly?" Giles asked. "We can't exactly kick the door down."

"I've got a lock pick." Dean offered.

She saw Buffy roll her eyes and lift her leg up to kick the door in when the door opened on its own. Before them stood a ninety year old Natalie French.

"Hello, dear! I thought I heard…Are you selling something? Because I'd like to help you out but, you see, I'm on a fixed income."

"You're Natalie French? The biology teacher?" Dean asked.

"Yes, that's me. Oh, but I haven't taught for over thirty years. I retired in 1972."

"I can't believe this!" Buffy shouted. "She used Miss French's records to get into the school. She could be anywhere!"

"No, dear." Miss French said. "I'm right here." The four of them quickly said goodbye and walked down to the street.

"Dammit! I should have checked her credentials when you found them Willow. I might have been able to spot the fake. We've just wasted a bunch of time!" Willow put the question of Dean's unusual skills set to the back of her mind for a time after they'd found Xander.

"What do we do now?" She pleaded with them for some kind of direction.

"Abject prayer and supplication would spring to mind." Giles said unhelpfully.

"Dean and I saw her walking past this park with her grocery bags. She lives in this neighborhood."

Xander was here! Somewhere. Panic swelled in her again.

"I'm gonna start banging on doors." Buffy grabbed her arm before she could walk up to the adjacent house. "Wait, no! We do _not_ have time for that!"

Fury filled Willow. "We have to do _something_!" She couldn't lose Xander.

"We will."

Dean had walked some distance away from the group and was staring down at a sewer entrance. Willow and Giles curiously watched Buffy walk up beside Dean and stare down at the manhole cover.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Dean asked her. Buffy nodded and bent down to lift the cover up before slipping herself inside. "I won't be long."

"Wait a sec." Dean said. They watched him run back to his car and pull something out of the trunk. When he returned she saw a long length of rope wrapped around his shoulder which he handed to Buffy. "Thanks."

After Buffy disappeared down the manhole Dean explained to them that Buffy was looking to capture the clawed vampire that had run away in fear.

"Maybe it can sniff the bitch out."

Willow counted the seven minutes it took for Buffy to return with the vampire tied up anxiously, praying to God that they wouldn't be too late.

"C'mon!" Buffy shouted as she pushed the vampire ahead of her, trying to get him to lead the way. "C'mon, where is she? Which house is it? I know you're afraid of her, I saw you! Come on! They followed the vampire down a block and a half before he stopped and hissed away from a house on the left.

"Come on. What? What is it? This is her, isn't it, this is her house? This is it!" Buffy cried jubilantly. "Better than radar!"

Buffy let go of the vampire and Dean immediately plunged a stake into the demon's heart turning it to dust. Willow saw an annoyed look cross Buffy's face but paid it no mind as she ran ahead to the house door.

"It's locked!" She shouted. Buffy ran around the house and stopped at a window that went into the ground for the basement. "I can see them! She's moving in on Xander!" Buffy kicked in the window and slid into the houses basement, Dean followed her, his machete raised, and she followed Dean with Giles behind her. She landed on the middle landing of the staircase and quickly ran down the stairs to the cage as Buffy began her assault with two cans of bug spray.

"HELP ME! HELP ME!" A still living Blayne screamed in fear. Giles tossed the tape recorder with the bat sonar to Dean, then joined her by the cage with Xander and Blayne. Willow stepped back to make room for him and almost tripped over a bone she dearly hoped belonged to an animal. Ignoring her discomfort she started to help Giles undo the binds around Blayne and Xander.

Buffy and Dean had the She-Mantis on the retreat toward her nest below the giant egg sack.

"Remember Dr. Gregory?" Buffy asked the beast. "You scarfed his head? Yeah, well, he taught me, you do your homework, you learn stuff! Like what happens to your nervous system when you hear this!" She pointed to Dean to play the tape with the bat sonar, but instead of the bat screech Giles' British lilt filled the dungeon.

"…extremely important to file not simply alphabetically…"

"It's on the wrong side!" Giles shouted. Dean hurried to flip the tape but cried out in pain when the She-Mantis slashed at his arm. She knocked Buffy to the ground when she tried to attack, then turned back to Dean but he had managed to switch the tape around by them. Willow held onto Xander tightly in anticipation. Ear shattering screeches filled the room and the beast started to shake and fit.

"Bat sonar. Makes your whole nervous system go to hell! You can go there with it!" And with those words Buffy let out a battle cry and started slicing and dicing. When the body was in more pieces than Willow could count Dean turned off the bat sonar.

"Well I, I say she's deceased." Giles said.

"And dissected." Willow felt the need to add.

"You okay?" Xander asked Buffy.

"Yeah. But Dean got swiped. Are you okay? How bad are you bleeding?"

Dean was cradling his upper left arm slightly, and when he moved his hand away there was a large gash in his leather jacket and the shirt underneath.

"Yeah, I'm good. The leather protected my skin pretty well. It's just a scratch." Willow hurried to Dean's side and saw that he was right. There was a thin red line going diagonally across his bicep. It was barely bleeding, but it would probably leave a nasty bruise.

"Well, uh…" Xander mumbled slightly. "Thanks Dean. And you guys too."

"Yeah, thanks!" Blayne enthusiastically said.

"I'm really glad you're okay." Willow told Xander. "It's really unfair how she only went after virgins." Xander laughed a little. "What?"

"I mean, here you guys are, doing the right thing, the smart thing, when a lot of other boys your age—"

"Flag down on that play babe!" Blayne interrupted. "I am _not_—"

"Well, you see, that's the She-Mantis' modus operandi." Giles explained. "Uh, she only preys on the pure." Dean started to cackle as shock and embarrassment filled Xander and Blayne's expressions.

"Well isn't this the perfect ending to a wonderful day!" Xander blithely commented.

"My dad's a lawyer!" Blayne spat out. "Anyone repeats this to anybody they're gonna find themselves facing a lawsuit!" Blayne stormed out of the basement, and Dean started to cackle even louder.

"I don't think it's bad." Willow told Xander. It was really quite romantic to her. "I think it's really—" Xander held up a discarded machete in a half threatening way.

"Sweet! It's certainly nothing I'll ever bring up again!"

Xander walked over to the She-Mantis' giant egg sack and looked at it calmly for a moment before viciously swinging the machete at it.

* * *

"Buffy? What kind of an idjit name is Buffy?"

"Hey, this is California Bobby. Just accept it and move on."

"Yeah, well, I'll look and see what I can find on Slayer lore that you wouldn't already know. You should be careful around her, Dean. Slayers tend to live hard and die young, I don't wanna see you goin' down with her."

"Hey, you know me Uncle Bobby, always careful."

"Right, it's your middle name. I knew a Slayer once you know. Didn't know it at the time though, put it all together after I became a hunter."

"Yeah? What was she like?"

"Japanese, tiny, and a hell of a fireball. The army stationed me in Okinawa for a time before shipping me off to Nam. Saw her take down ten yakuza that were causing trouble."

"Yeah, that sounds like Buffy."

"Hey, Dean. You give anymore thought to me and Jim's offer?"

"Look Bobby, I really appreciate it, but I gotta stay in Sunnydale. Maybe after I get custody."

* * *

Comments:

I just wanted to give a big thank you to all my reviewers and followers, they're a real motivating factor. This chapter, and probably the rest of the story, is turning into a labor of love and I hope all my readers will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

A funny thing about the scene with Dean and Cordelia, I had absolutely no plans to include that in this chapter but Cordelia just butted herself in and demanded my attention. Ah well, I guess that's just Cordy.


	3. Transmaniacon MC

Disclaimer: Is this really necessary three chapters in?

Chapter 3: Transmaniacon MC

"Why…hah…are we doing this again?" Xander asked Willow as they ran around the school's track.

"Because…we promised Dean…hah…we'd do exactly what he said."

"You!" He spat vehemently. "You promised! I had nothing to do with it!"

They had one more lap to go and Xander knew exactly what he'd do when he finished; curl up with a tank of water and never move again. His head throbbed, his lungs burned, there was a painful stitch in his side, and his thighs and calves itched uncomfortably. Dean was proving to be an expert on torture as well as monsters, or maybe the two just went hand in hand.

This was their fourth Hunting 101 lesson since he'd almost been eaten by a giant bug two weeks ago. Xander had been unwilling to go but Willow had poked and prodded at him.

"What if something happens and Buffy isn't around? What would you have done if we hadn't gotten there in time to save you?" She had argued to him. "He's taking the time to teach us and just because you don't like him doesn't mean you can't learn from him. Give Dean a chance. He's been really cool with us so far. He hasn't bullied us, or proved any of those scary rumors true, and he's just been really nice."

In the end he'd gone along to make his best friend happy, and to make sure she was never alone with Dean. Xander had promised he would give the older boy a chance, it was the most he could do after he had been injured saving Xander's head from being chomped on, but that didn't mean he was going to risk leaving Willow with a known girl predator.

Xander collapsed on the grass nearby, breathing heavily, Willow doubled over next to him.

"Oh ground! So hard and uncomfy…it feels like heaven."

"Hey! Don't lie down, stretch it out!" Dean, who had finished his run some twenty minutes earlier, held out two bottles of water. Xander reluctantly got up to reach for it, and gulped half of the delicious liquid down.

"That was pretty good." Dean told them. "You two finished faster than I thought you would but you need to build up your stamina. You can't always rely on adrenaline to get you out of a tight spot."

"Are we…hah…moving onto the studying part now?" Willow panted.

Xander groaned.

"Alright Mulder, Scully, what are two items you need to keep a ghost away?"

This was how these tutoring sessions had been going so far. Dean would test their endurance, strength, or speed in a boot campesque manner, then he would quiz them on what they knew or most often what they thought they knew about the supernatural.

"Oh! Um, I know it! Iron keeps ghosts away because…because there's iron in blood and…ghosts don't like living people?"

"Well, I'm not really sure if that's the reason, but—"

The two of them continued to talk about similar things as Xander took another sip of water, its coolness soothing the ache in his temple and clearing his head.

Dean Winchester didn't exactly have a reputation as a studious intellectual, but Xander had found over the past two weeks that slacker the older boy may be, he was far from stupid. Dean was almost an encyclopedia when it came to scary weirdness and the many different ways to kill them. Xander only wished he could absorb Dean's knowledge and military like training a la Rogue from the X-Men. Then he and Willow wouldn't need these tutoring sessions at all.

Sweat and water mixed together on Xander's lips forming the answer in his mouth.

"Salt." Dean and Willow looked at him in surprise. Xander bit down his contempt. He knew neither of them thought he could give the right answer.

"Throw some over your shoulder and poof! No more evil spirits." His mother had sometimes thrown salt around the house when his father brought home a lottery ticket. She had said it would drive the bad luck away but it had never worked.

"Not bad, Harris. You should use your upstairs brain more often." Xander took another swallow of water before coming back with his own dig.

"I would say the same to you if I thought you had one."

"This one's just jealous he hasn't done the horizontal tango yet." Dean grinned slyly as he winked at Willow, who blushed at the implication, making her already red face from the physical exertion splotchy and unflattering.

A beep sounded, and Dean looked down at his watch.

"I gotta go before I'm late for my shift. Listen, run for a half hour every other day until we can do this again. Walk five minutes, then sprint for two." Dean quickly gathered his stuff and headed east toward the garage he worked at. Willow punched his arm as soon as Dean was out of sight.

"You promised you would be nice, mister!"

"Hey!" Xander rubbed his arm. "He started it." Willow sighed exasperatedly.

"I should get going too. My parents are gonna be home in an hour or two and I should be there. I'll see you tomorrow, at school."

* * *

"So how was yesterday's tutoring session with Dean?" Buffy asked her as they headed toward the lunchroom.

"Exhausting. He made us run laps. I'm not really much for running around in circles over and over, give me a big heavy book any day."

"Hmm, I started out kinda similar. My first watcher, Merrick, would drill me for hours on being light on my feet, and the best way to escape when I couldn't win a fight." Willow nodded at Buffy's response, feeling a little relieved that what Dean was putting her and Xander through was normal. She hoped the physical lessons would be over soon so they could go more in depth on monsters and magic.

"Just be careful, okay?" She heard Buffy plead. "I mean, I guess some basic self-defense and how to are kinda necessary if you and Xander want to keep helping me out, but I'd still feel better if you guys just stuck to research and left the slaying to me." Willow felt a fuzziness fill her heart. Buffy was such a compassionate person, always wanting her friends to stay safe.

"Oh don't worry! The thought of me fighting a monster gives me the willies. I'm happy being on the sidelines."

"Hey, I've been thinking about Dean a lot lately."

"Oh?" Willow questioned, wondering where Buffy was going with this.

"Well, he's been hanging out a lot with us, but only when we're hunting down some monster. Whenever we invite him to go to The Bronze, or the movies with us he kinda makes a quick getaway."

Willow had noticed that too, and it perplexed her. At first she thought it was because he and Xander were at odds, but as she observed him outside of the library, in the hallways and the cafeteria she started to see some patterns emerge. He worked four days a week, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, usually until eight. Dean wasn't a member of any school clubs, or sports, and when he wasn't with them in the library he really only interacted with his girl of the week and whoever she was friends with. She didn't know what Dean did with his time when he skipped class, but she didn't think he did it to hang with the other juvenile delinquents under the bleachers on the football field like the rumors said.

"I don't think he has any friends." She told her conclusion to Buffy. "At least not at school. Dean mentioned he has a little brother, maybe he spends his free time taking care of him? It must be hard on him with his dad in jail."

"That's so sad!" Buffy intoned. "He must have felt pretty lonely all this time, hunting alone and not having any friends to talk about it with. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't talk to you or Xander about this vampire stuff."

Willow thought back to Dean's first year in Sunnydale four years ago. He was like a yo-yo back then. One day he'd be cute, charming, and popular, the next he'd lash out at anyone who sat too close to him. Once she had accidently seen Principal O'Dell searching Dean for weapons as she waited in the office for her father to take her home sick. The rumors had run wild that year, how Dean had spent six months in a mental institution, or Juvy Hall, or that his father had gone to jail for cannibalism and he'd raised Dean the same way. How silly all those scary rumors seemed to her now that she knew the truth about the upperclassman. Willow thought about the stake she now carried in her backpack. Dean was entirely justified in bringing a knife into his LA middle school all those years ago; his and Buffy's expulsions were really entirely unfair.

"We need to do something." Willow determined. "We should make him come out with us. Maybe he and Xander will start to get along if they get to know each other better? They're both guys, they need guy time, it would be perfect!" They each grabbed a tray and started loading food onto it.

"We'll leave the plotting for later. Speaking of guys, guess who spoke to me in the library today?"

"I'm guessing someone other than Giles?" Willow inferred as she avoided the stringy green stuff in the lasagna.

"You'd be guessing right. It was Owen Thurman." Buffy said proudly.

"Owen Thurman talked to you?"

"It's all true!"

"Wow!" Willow exclaimed. Glad to depart from the serious talk. "He hardly talks to anyone. He's solitary, mysterious…He can brood for forty minutes straight, I've clocked him." Willow reveled in all the girl talk that had been happening between her and Buffy since they became friends. It had been two guys and a girl with her, Xander, and Jesse for so long she had almost forgotten what it was like to gush over boys and nail polish with someone.

"He was so nice, it was eerie." Buffy continued as they headed to the table Xander had claimed.

"What did you guys have to talk about?" She asked, yearning for the details.

"Emily Dickinson." Willow was now envious, but only sorta.

"He reads Emily Dickinson? He's sensitive, yet manly!" The two of them sat down next to Xander, who was playing with his food.

"Well, wait. You've never even read her!" Willow accused.

Buffy pulled out a small book penned by Owen Thurman's favorite poet.

"You vixen!" She praised.

Xander held up his fork contemplatively.

"Has anybody given any thought as to what this green stuff is?"

"Hmm, I'm avoiding the subject." Buffy said dismissively.

"I think its kale, or possibly string cheese." Xander pushed his plate away. "So, Buffy, how'd the slaying go last night?"

"Xander!" Buffy said with a stern look, while Willow glanced around, making sure no one could overhear them.

"I mean, how did the 'laying' go?" Willow winced at Xander's latest gaff. "No, I don't mean that either!"

Buffy eased up on her glare and started dividing her food.

"It went fine, thank you. There's some new hoidy toidy vampire sect in town."

"That's bad." This probably meant another afternoon of helping Giles after computer club with Ms. Calendar.

"Well, hey, they're bringing in the much needed tourism dollars." Xander said lightheartedly. "Ooh, look at Mr. Excitement."

Willow and Buffy turned in their seats to see who Xander was insulting. Owen Thurman was sitting by himself and brooding mysteriously.

"Owen! He's all alone! Maybe someone should sit with him." Buffy conspiratorially said to Willow.

"Just to be polite. Good luck!" Buffy quickly left the table to join Owen leaving Willow alone with Xander.

"Okay, what just happened?" He asked her.

"Owen and Buffy flirted in the library this morning. I think he's gonna ask her out." Xander got a faraway look in his eyes.

"Did he? I dunno, he seems kinda boring to be Buffy's type." Irritation filled Willow. When was Xander going to realize Buffy liked him only as a friend.

"Maybe you're right." She said a little meanly. "Dean is way more Buffy's type and they have a lot in common. They're both really good at killing things, and they've both been expelled from their old schools…Oh, and they'd look really cute together, they're both really attractive people."

Xander glared at her. "Okay, I get it."

Willow went back to eating her lunch, steadfastly ignoring the guilty feeling churning the food in her stomach.

"I'm an interesting guy, I know about monster hunting and bowling, and a whole lot of other things! I'm sure we've got a lot in common too!" Willow absently nodded her head in agreement.

"I'm sure you do, too."

* * *

Buffy bounced happily beside Willow as they entered the library. She had a date! A date with a normal guy that liked her. Owen had asked Buffy out and NOT Cordelia whose attempt at sabotage had epically failed.

"It's not that big a deal." She humbly told Willow.

"It is a big deal!"

"It's not." It was just a date. Her first date, true, but she was afraid if she made too big a deal about it something horrible would happen and she would have to cancel.

"It is!" Willow spotted Giles walking toward them, carrying a large book. "Tell her!" The other girl said to him.

"I'm afraid it's very big!" Giles said to them.

"Thank you!" Willow told Giles happily before the true meaning behind his words sunk in to her. "Wait! What are you talking about?"

"What are _you_ talking about?" Giles responded, his eyes flicking between them.

"Boys!" They exclaimed together. 'Please, please, please.' Buffy prayed. 'Don't let Giles ruin my date!'

"Yes, well I'm talking about trouble." Her Watcher told them. "A violent and disturbing prophecy is about to be fulfilled."

"The Order of Aurelius." Buffy stated despondently. Why, oh, why did Giles have to find that ring on the vampire she dusted the night before.

"You were spot on about the connection." Giles flipped open a book to show Buffy the research he had done. She didn't bother to look, she probably couldn't even read the language it was written in.

"I've looked at the writings of Aurelius himself, and he, he prophesied that the brethren of his order would come to the Master and bring him the Anointed."

"Who's that?" Willow asked.

"Well, I-I don't know exactly, a-a-a warrior, but, but it says he will rise from the ashes of the Five on the evening of the thousandth day after the Advent of Septus." Buffy sighed, relieved. That sounded very far away. Like sometime next week.

"Well, we'll be ready whenever that is." What should she wear tonight? Her mom was working late at the gallery so there would be no help there. Maybe Willow could come over and help her choose an outfit.

"It's tonight."

"Tonight, okay…Whoah! Not okay!" How could this happen to her!

"My calculations are precise." Giles assured, frustrating her more.

"Nuh! They're bad calculations, bad!"

"Buffy has an important date tonight!" Said Willow, backing her up.

"Owen!" Buffy reminded Giles. They had met that morning and the librarian had liked him.

"Alright, I-I'll just jump in my time machine, go back to the twelfth century and ask the vampires to postpone their ancient prophecy for a few days while you take in dinner and a show!" The man lashed impetuously.

"Okay, at this point you're abusing sarcasm."

"Buffy, this is no ordinary vampire. We have to stop him before he reaches the Master."

Buffy desperately tried to think of an excuse to give him. Would reminding Giles just how cute Owen was work? Probably not.

"Dean!" She blurted. "Dean can go with you! He was all over this vampire thing before I came to town, handing my duties over to him for just _one_ night wouldn't be much of a problem!"

"Buffy, I'm ashamed for you! Dean's abilities in the field are still largely untested. E-even if his skills are as good as he boasts, he is no Slayer, you are. The Anointed is supposed to be incredibly dangerous, it would be irresponsible to hand the reins over to a hunter, and it would very likely get him killed!"

Buffy lowered her head, embarrassed for even suggesting it. 'She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness' The Slayer prophecy said. Every day she learned just how true that really was.

Buffy managed to somehow finish all of her homework before she had to meet Giles in Daybrooke Cemetary at sunset. Together they strolled along the iron gates of the cemetery, searching for fresh graves. Finding none, they moved onto Weirwood, then Sunnydale Presbyterian, and all the rest of them without running into even a fledgling. It was at ten, two whole hours after she was supposed to meet Owen at The Bronze that Giles conceded that he may have miscalculated.

"Well, you know what they say. Ninety percent of the vampire slaying game is, is waiting."

Buffy sucked her extra-large soda dry. "You couldn't have told me that ninety percent ago?"

"Well, we, we certainly waited here long enough." Giles stood up from the tombstone he'd been resting on and brushed off his pants.

"Besides, there aren't any fresh graves. Who's gonna rise?"

"Apparently no one tonight." Buffy jumped up excitedly.

"Then I can bail? I can go to The Bronze and find Owen?"

"Oh, very well then. Follow your hormones if you want. But I assume I don't have to warn you about the hazards of becoming personally involved with someone who's unaware of your unique condition." Buffy mentally winced. He made it sound like her being the Slayer was some kind of disease. Dwelling on that idea a little, she kinda agreed. Being the Slayer had totally killed her social life.

"Yeah, yeah, I've read the back of the box."

"If your identity as the Slayer is revealed it could put you and all those around you in danger." Her mind flew to her mother, still innocent of the truth, then Willow, Xander, and Dean. She wasn't stupid, she knew some of the consequences of telling people what she was, her own parents had had her committed for a few short weeks after she had burned down the school gym. She suppressed a shiver as she remembered the asylum.

"Well, in that case I won't wear my button that says 'I'm a Slayer! Ask me how!' Good Night."

As she walked to The Bronze she brooded on her budding relationship with Owen. What if they really hit it off and it became a second, then a third date? She definitely didn't want to tell him about slaying if they got serious, but would she eventually have to? Buffy put these doubts to the side as she entered the teen club. Her short life would never be normal, but that didn't mean she couldn't indulge in a slice of apple pie every now and then.

When she entered the club she saw Owen and Cordelia dancing closely together. Disappointed, she turned around and headed home.

* * *

Xander watched Buffy slam her locker, a little hand shaped dent now in it.

"So you just went home?" He asked incredulously.

"What was I supposed to do? Say to Owen, 'Sorry I was late, I was sitting in a cemetery with the librarian waiting for a vampire to rise so I could prevent an evil prophecy from coming to pass?'" Xander was more than grateful Buffy's date the night before had been a bust, but he'd be neglecting his friend duties if he didn't give a little advice.

"Or flat tire?" Xander suggested, weighing the two options in his hands.

The two of them started walking the two hallways down to his locker.

"I can't take this anymore. I feel like everyone is staring at the big, hideous, dateless monster."

Oh, Buffy was far from hideous.

"You're acting a little overly aren't you? I mean, you could have any guy in school." Like Xander, but not Dean. Definitely not Dean.

"He's not any guy." Buffy sighed. "He's more…Oweny."

"Sure, he's got a certain Owenosity, but that's not hard to find." They reached his locker. "I mean, a lot of guys can read." He smiled his best goofy grin at her. "I can read!"

Buffy sighed and leaned back against the lockers. Xander started pulling out the text books he needed for tonight's homework that he would probably not do anyway.

"Hey Buffy."

"Owen."

"Oh look its Owen." He slammed his locker, ignoring the annoyed look Buffy was giving him. "Buffy and Owen. And Xander. That'd be me."

"Where were you last night?"

"Oh, well, um, my watch broke and we don't have any clocks in our house and so I didn't know what time it was or even what day it was…" Buffy babbled in a very Willow like fashion. It was a little sickening watching the beautiful, confident, and independent girl he'd developed a major crush on turn to nervous goo.

"Oh." Owen chuckled. What was the deal with that? It wasn't that funny. "I thought I was the only one that happened to. How 'bout we try it again for tonight? I'll even lend you my watch."

Owen smoothly pulled out a fancy shmancy gold pocket watch and handed it to Buffy. Xander glanced at his Tweety Bird wristwatch, then pulled his sleeve down.

The two lovebirds continued to ignore Xander as they flirted and set a date for seven that night. This was ridiculous. Who goes on a date on a Tuesday night?

Buffy soon walked off dreamily, leaving Xander feeling very much like Mr. Cellophane.

He needed to brainstorm ways to sabotage this date. And fast.

* * *

"When you said it was an emergency, I didn't think you meant the fashion kind." Dean grumbled to the two girls as they searched through Buffy's closet. He had rushed to 1630 Revello after Buffy had called his foster home, bringing his heavy artillery, only to find a giggling Buffy and Willow, and a grumpy Xander.

Buffy turned around to face the two boys lounging on her bed. Willow held up a white dress with a cherry print over the Slayer's fluffy pink bathrobe. "Okay, do I wanna appear shy, coy, and naïve, or" Willow switched to a tie dye explosion, "unrestrained, insatiable, and aggressive?"

"Uh, y'know, Owen is a little homespun, he probably doesn't like that overtly assertive look." Xander said, putting in his two-cents.

"Wait, Owen Thurman?" Dean questioned. Buffy gave him an excited nod. "Isn't he, I dunno, kinda boring?"

"I hate to agree with Dean here, but…I agree." Xander said before getting up from the bed and reaching into Buffy's closet. He pulled out a thick winter jacket and hat and held it in front of the Slayer.

"Here's a nice combination! A nice, comfy, overcoat and ski cap. The earflaps will bring out your eyes!" Dean rolled his eyes.

"Just show a little breast and you're golden. Can I go now, or do you need me to chauffeur you around as well?"

"No! You can't go yet!" Willow told him. "We need guy opinions! And I was hoping you, me, and Xander could watch a movie or something while Buffy went on her date."

"Hey, nobody ever said anything about a movie!" Xander protested.

The girls ignored Xander as they continued to trap him.

"Besides, you don't have any plans for tonight, right?" Buffy prodded.

"No, but—"

"And we're friends now. Friends help friends with advice on clothes, or boys, or the best time to skip class, and in exchange they spend their free time hanging out together. It's called being sociable." Dean looked away uncomfortably, choosing to instead focus on the angel figurine on the bedside table.

Buffy shuffled over to her dresser, picked two objects and held them up to Xander and Dean.

"Okay, guy's opinion, which one do you think Owen will like better? The red or the peach?" Dean genuinely didn't care.

"Oh, you mean for kissing you and then telling all his friends how easy you are so the whole school loses respect for you and then talks behind your back?" Xander visualized for everyone. "The red's fine."

"Thanks." Buffy deadpanned. "I'll go with the peach."

"Here, put this on." Willow handed another dress to Buffy.

The two girls turned again to the two boys, obviously wanting them to turn around, or leave the room.

"Go right ahead, I'm up for a show." Dean leered, still feeling put off that he'd been tricked into coming here.

"Nuh uh." Xander said, before grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the doorway. "We'll be waiting out here!" The door closed behind them, but the girls' giggles carried into the hallway.

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing." The sophomore hissed. "Buffy's a nice girl and she doesn't need guys like you drooling all over her."

"Guys like me, huh? Well I am the tall, dark, and handsome type." The kid snorted.

"More like tall, dick, and hairy." Hairy? Was that really the best he could do?

Dean snorted and started walking down the stairs, Xander a step or two behind. "Don't worry kid, you're the only one boning for Buffy here."

"What? I'm not! You're not?" Dean turned to look at Xander.

"Hey, Buffy is hot as hell but dude, I don't do office romance. I've seen it on TV and it's always messy and dramatic. I don't do long term anyway. Or parents. I definitely don't do parents." Dean reached the bottom of the stairs and started heading for the door, he had to get out of here before Willow made him watch a chick flick.

The doorbell rang and the girls sprinted down the stairs excitedly, Willow following closely behind Buffy.

"That's Owen!" Buffy excitedly opened the front door.

"That's Giles."

"We need to talk." The Watcher said.

"Buffy's not home." She said as she tried to shut the door, but Giles pushed himself in.

"My calculations may not have been that far off." The man held up a newspaper and Dean moved behind Buffy to read it.

"Five Die in Van Accident'?"

"Wow, that headline just screams vampire cult." Dean told the Watcher. The man rolled his eyes in annoyance, whether at his presence or his sarcasm Dean couldn't tell.

"Out of the ashes of five shall rise the one. That's the prophecy, five people have died!"

"In a car crash." Buffy said.

"I know it doesn't quite follow, but, but it's worth investigating. Look! Among the dead was Andrew Borba, whom the police sought for questioning in a double murder. Now, he may be the Anointed One. The, the bodies have been taken to, to Sunnydale Funeral Home, w-we can—"

"Giles," Buffy interrupted, "why do you want to hurt me?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Uh, hi." Buffy's date said as he walked through the still open doorway.

"You have a date?" The librarian questioned rhetorically.

"Yes, but I will return those overdue books by tomorrow."

"Wait, you're not getting off that easily."

"Man, you really care about your work." Owen said obliviously. "Hey, Dean. I didn't know you were friends with Buffy."

"Well I'm a friendly kinda guy."

Willow and Xander quickly drew Buffy's date into the living room, so Giles and Buffy could speak without censorship. Dean stayed behind to not so subtly eavesdrop.

"Another date? Don't you do anything else?"

"This is the first date!" The teenaged girl protested. "There's never been a date, okay? This is my maiden voyage!"

Dean watched the two argue back and forth and wondered what his dad would say if he or Sam were the ones with a date.

"This is the 90's, the 1990's, in point of fact, and I can do both! Clark Kent has a job, I just want to go on a date." Dean was a little impressed the teen had been able to do both for so long, but knew she would soon realize hunting was more of a lifestyle than a part time job. It was a necessity if she wanted to survive.

"Well, I, I suppose it was a fairly slim lead." Giles said, giving in.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you! And look," Buffy grabbed a pager from a nearby drawer. "I won't go far, okay? If the apocalypse comes, beep me." Buffy and Owen quickly left in his dinky Ford.

"Is something going on?" Willow asked Giles, a worried look on her face.

"Oh, uh, probably not, no. I, uh, I suppose I'll just go to the funeral home in case, just see if something comes up."

"I'll go with you." Dean said, pulling his keys from his jacket pocket.

"No, no, Dean. This is probably nothing, a-a longshot."

"But if it is, you're gonna need backup." Dean lowered his voice as he tugged the Watcher out the doorway. "Please, get me out of this house before they make me watch Clueless or something."

"Well," Giles started to clean his glasses. "I-I suppose it would be prudent to be cautious, but—"

"Great! I'll drive." Dean made sure to give Giles his most charming smile before leading the way to his baby

It was a short ride and Dean found Giles to be a surprisingly good passenger. The older man had been impressed with how well he took care of his baby and didn't complain once about Blue Öyster Cult blaring from the stereo.

They pulled up to the funeral home well after sunset and Dean and Giles stepped out of the car with some trepidation, their senses heightened by the night's silence.

"Now Dean, I want you to do exactly as I say. I don't want any risks taken here tonight, w-we'll do a simple sweep through and, and if we find anything we can beep Buffy on her, uh, whatchamacallit. Are-are you listening to me?" Not really, but he could guess at the content. Dean was more focused on what weapons he wanted to bring with him. But he didn't think Giles would like to hear that.

"Yeah, I'm listening. Be careful, follow your orders, yada yada yada. Hey, do you want a crossbow?"

"What?" Dean waved him over to the trunk. He swept aside his dad's and Sam's first aid boxes to reach for the wooden crossbow bolts.

"Oh my, th-this is quite an arsenal." Dean watched the Watcher's eyes scan the collection of weapons. Buffy had had a similar reaction when they were grabbing machetes to take down that She-Mantis. He remembered the Slayer running her hands delicately down his sharpest blades, a look of primal appreciation for its deadliness on her face.

Dean showed the man the two crossbows in his collection, the PSE Tac, which was a bitch to reload but the power behind it was second to none, and his hand held one that was perfect for a quick fire.

"No thank you Dean. I-I'm fine with the cross and stake I brought with me. Range weapons have never really suited me." Dean shrugged his shoulders before putting the Tac back and storing his spare ammunition in a small holster under his jacket.

"Lead the way, General."

Giles led the way to the lit up building warily, Dean following in his steps like his dad had taught him. A figure appeared from behind a tree and Dean let out a curse. A second vamp appeared on their opposite side, cornering them.

Dean aimed his crossbow at the first vamp, unsure of whether or not to fire. At this distance the vampire could easily dodge, but if he waited too long they'd be close enough to attack and his arm wasn't up for a wrestling match so soon after he'd bruised it rescuing Xander.

"Hold your fire, Dean." His eyes flickered to Giles before refocusing on his target. He nodded to show his acknowledgement of Giles' untold plan.

The man reached with slow deliberateness for the duffel slung across his shoulders and pulled out a cross that he thrust in the vamps faces when they were within two feet. The two demons hissed in pain and stepped back, lowering their guards. Dean quickly fired and dusted one of them and Giles and Dean ran up the stairs into the funeral home. He closed the glass doors behind him and fumbled for a lock but found none. Through the glass he saw half a dozen more vampires join the one he didn't kill.

"Dammit, this is turning into an ambush." Dean reloaded his crossbow as Giles tried to open a nearby locked door. Unable to open it, Giles motioned for Dean to follow him and together they ran further into the building. They entered the first unlocked door on their right and found themselves in the morgue. They pushed a filing cabinet against the door but both knew the barricade wouldn't last long against a baker's dozen undead.

"They must be here for the Anointed One." Giles said as he caught his breath.

"Or maybe they just want to kill us?"

Dean looked around the room, desperate to find any more weapons or an escape route. He looked up at the window and was surprised to see two heads of black and red hair.

"What the hell are you doing here!" Willow and Xander had sheepish looks on their stupid mugs.

"Yes, what _are_ you doing here, you should get to safety immediately!" Giles told the two kids.

"We were worried you two would get in trouble, so we decided to follow you." Willow explained to them. Dean ran a hand over his face. Next training session he was going to beat into them common sense and safety first. This was no place for a couple greenhorns.

"Can you get through this window?" Giles tested the bars and shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

"Look, I hate to state the obvious, but this looks like a job for Buffy." Xander told them.

The blonde would certainly be useful right now, but Dean knew his dad had been in worse situations before and come out on top. Between him and Giles they might be able to fight their way out.

"Uh, she has her beeping thing!" Giles said, referencing the pager Buffy had took with her. "No phone of course."

"Look, we'll get her. You two just hang in there." Xander and Willow quickly left and Dean hoped they wouldn't get turned on the way to get Buffy. Ideas started to storm through his head as the vamps started to push through the barricade.

"We could set up some traps, limit their entry point and dust them one at a time."

"I doubt we have the time."

"Well I'm not going down without a fight." There had to be something they could do. Bless the water in the sprinkler system and set it off? They didn't have access to the well.

"Dean, while you did well outside…actually you were quite impressive. You went straight for the kill, Buffy's always dilly dallying in her fights and—"

"Is now really the time to pay me compliments?" He questioned the librarian.

"Yes, um, my point being that going toe to toe isn't our only option at the moment." Giles opened one of the body storage drawers, Dean observed him checking the neck of the cadaver. "Perhaps hiding in one of these drawers and praying they're too stupid to check would be best."

He reluctantly opened another body drawer and stared down at the corpse. An old man in his seventies who probably died of a stroke or something else that was normal.

"At least it doesn't rank yet."

Dean climbed on top of the corpse, hoping its decay would hide his scent, and pushed himself into the wall. The vampires broke the door down and smashed the filing cabinet not a minute after they'd hid. Bangs and crashes sounded in the room, and Dean idly wondered if this was like a birthday party for them. It felt like hours before silence filled the morgue but his watch told him it was only thirty minutes. Dean waited an extra five before pulling himself out of the body drawer. He was about to tell Giles to come out when Buffy appeared, still dressed in her date clothes.

"Dean! Where's Giles? What happened?"

The man in question rolled himself out.

"Buffy! I'm so glad you're here!"

"What happened?" The Slayer repeated as she took in the ransacked room.

"Some vamps cornered us almost as soon as we got here." He explained to her.

"Yes, but, um, the two of us were more than a match for them." Giles told Buffy. "We hid in here. Though Dean managed to kill one. I believe the brethren were here for the Anointed One, either to find him or, or, to give him something. The prophecy is really quite vague on the details." Prophecy. This was way too much work for a bunch of words written thousands of years ago.

"I think I heard them take a body out of the drawer next to me." He told them. It was hard to tell over the other noises but it was a possibility they couldn't rule out.

"So this vampire guy could be long gone by now." Buffy concluded.

The three of them talked about what they should do next and decided it would be best to do a sweep through the funeral home to make sure there weren't any stragglers.

"Okay," Buffy sighed, brushing a hand through her hair "I just got to get Owen and the others to safety first."

"Owen? You brought a date?" Giles questioned incredulously, and Dean echoed the sentiment. Bringing a date on a hunt, how stupid was this girl?

Buffy sighed again, and Dean could detect her frustration. "I didn't _bring_ him, he came."

"Buffy, when I said you could slay vampires and have a social life, I didn't mean at the same time!" Giles scolded exasperatedly. Annoyance filled Dean.

"Well maybe you shouldn't have told her that at all! People like us can't be normal and you shouldn't give her the illusion that an apple pie life as a cheerleading prom queen is actually possible!"

Buffy tensed her body threateningly as she turned to face Dean more directly. He might have been intimidated if her mini-dress didn't make her look like a blonde bimbo.

"Who are you to tell me how to live my life! Is it really so bad to wish for just a little bit of normalcy? Do you want me to be like you! A lonely guy with no friends and a junky car!"

"My car is awesome! And at least I don't run away from my responsibilities. How many people would still be alive if you patrolled every night like Giles wants you to?"

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Screams echoed through the building and Dean, Giles, and Buffy hurried to its source. Willow, Xander, and Owen were cowering in front of a ferociously ugly vampire.

"You're the chaff and unblessed! I'll suck the blood from you're hearts, He says I may!" The vampire shouted in bad prose.

Buffy ripped the crossbow from his hands and rushed at the vamp as he lifted Owen Thurman from the ground to bite into his neck.

"Get your hand off my DATE!" The vamp threw Owen to the side, the boy's head hitting the wall hard. Buffy let out a scream of rage as she fired a bolt and roundhouse kicked it when she missed. Dean rushed to the fallen Owen and checked his pulse.

"Is he okay?" Willow asked him worriedly. Dean ran a hand over the back of Owen's head, checking for lumps.

"He's alive, prob'ly have a concussion when he wakes up." At his words Owen opened his eyes, they looked unfocused. Dean looked up at the battle happening not five feet away. Buffy had discarded his crossbow and was beating the crap out of the vamp and saw what Giles had meant earlier. He saw four times she could have plunged her stake into the vampire's heart and ended it but she continued her barrage of attacks. Dean bit his lip, it was a kind of sloppiness his dad would have trained out of her until she dropped. He was about to shout for Buffy to finish it when the vampire was finally impaled on a broken table. Owen let out a loud groan, turning Buffy's attention back to her date.

"Ow, what happened to that guy? And why are Dean and the librarian here?"

"Oh, uh…" Buffy began "we scared him off. Dean and Giles helped."

"Oh good. I uh, I think I'm gonna go home now." Buffy helped the boy up and he turned around in a circle confused. "Uh, which way's home?" Xander straightened Owen out as he started to tip over.

"We'll get him home." Xander said, tilting his head toward Dean. Dean picked up his crossbow and pulled his keys from his pocket. "Yeah, I'll drive him home." Dean ignored Buffy's sad eyes watching them walk Owen out of the funeral home.

The two of them sat Owen in the back seat and the concussed boy promptly fell asleep. Xander moved to shake him awake but Dean put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"Let him sleep, we'll wake him up in twenty minutes. Where does he live?"

"Somewhere on Fourth Street." Xander climbed into the backseat to keep an eye on Owen and Dean started the car.

"Hey Dean, did ya mean what you said earlier? About not going after Buffy?" This again?

"Dude, that chick is way out of your league."

"But you meant what you said, right? You won't take advantage of Buffy or Willow?" Dean snorted.

"I'm not some kinda sexual predator you know. I do have some moral standards."

"Sorry, it's just you can't be too careful with all everyone says about you." Dean knew what they said about him, and as long as it didn't reach his social worker he didn't give a rat's ass.

"Don't believe everything you hear kid." Xander was quiet for a while as Dean drove to Fourth Street. "Yeah, I've kinda figured that out."

* * *

Buffy walked between Willow and Xander, her focus mainly on Xander, as they walked through the quad.

"Did Owen say anything about me on the way home?" She felt terrible about what had happened, but they had been having a nice time before she had to go to the funeral home.

"No, not really. He pretty much slept the whole time."

"I totally blew it with him last night, didn't I? Who wants to be with danger girl?"

"No, no, see, what you need is a guy who already know you're deepest darkest secrets and still says, 'Hey, I like that girl!' Someone like—"

"Owen!" Owen Thurman had walked up to the trio while she hadn't been paying attention. There was no visible sign of the injury he received the night before but Buffy saw that he still didn't quite walk in a straight line.

"Well, heh…this is our stop." Willow said as she dragged Xander away to give them some privacy.

"I don't really know how to say this, but...last night—"

"You don't even have to." Buffy interrupted. "I'm sure you were pretty freaked out."

"Totally! And…I was wondering when I could see you again." Buffy looked up hopefully.

"Really?" Owen nodded enthusiastically. "I mean, last night was incredible! I never thought nearly getting killed would make me feel so alive!" Danger made him feel alive? She looked down at her shoes disappointed. He didn't want her, he wanted the Slayer.

"So that's why you want to be with me?" She asked him, wanting confirmation.

"Oh, absolutely! When can we do something like that again? Tonight maybe?"

"Tonight would be…not a workable thing. Did I really just say that?" She questioned to herself. Owen was so nice and sweet, and yeah, just a little boring, and he was a part of the life she craved. Or was he? She didn't want or need a gung ho adventure guy, she already had enough of that in her life.

"Look, it's not you. It's me." She told Owen with a meaningful look. He got it after a moment.

"Right. It's you." Feeling depressed, Buffy sat down on a nearby bench as she watched Owen walk away. She heard Giles' footsteps stop beside the bench. She looked up at him, acknowledging his presence and he sat down beside her.

"I was ten years old when my father told me I was destined to be a Watcher. He was one, and his, uh, mother before him, and I was to be next."

"Were you thrilled beyond measure?" She asked sarcastically.

"No, I had very definite plans about my future. I was going to be a fighter pilot. Or possibly a grocer. Well, uh... My father gave me a very tiresome speech about, uh, responsibility and sacrifice. I imagine Dean had a similar childhood."

"Sacrifice huh?" Her mind flew to her and Dean's argument in the morgue.

"I'm sorry I didn't go to the funeral home with you. I put you and Dean in danger."

"We went to the funeral home of our own free will."

"I should've been there." It was her responsibility, her burden, not theirs.

"Perhaps. I have volumes on lore and prophecy but I don't have an instruction manual. We need to feel as we go along and perhaps Dean did have a point last night about you avoiding your responsibilities, but I think you also have every right to strive for as much normalcy as you can manage. I haven't quite yet forgotten what it's like to be a teenager, you do need an outlet for the stresses of your life."

Buffy looked up at him again. "Really?" Giles nodded and put a comforting arm around her shoulder.

* * *

1. Werewolves only grow animal hair when in close proximity to a Hellmouth or Devil's Gate

2. Werewolves always eat the heart of their victim

3. Werewolves are usually unaware of their condition the first several months after being infected as early symptoms and lunar cycles often result in amnesia.

Willow looked up from her notes to observe the boys. Dean was coaching Xander on the best ways to escape a hold from behind and Xander was struggling to properly execute one of the techniqes. She had to hold in a giggle when Xander began to wiggle in a way that resembled a booty grind. She devilishly wished for a camcorder so she could show Buffy.

"Ow! Dude! You stepped on my foot!"

"Aren't I supposed to step on your foot?"

"Yeah, but not that hard! You know what, I think we're done for the day!" Willow quickly gathered up her stuff and walked over to the boys.

"Thanks Dean, I really learned a lot today. The werewolf notes are really interesting."

Dean shrugged his shoulders as he chugged down some water, before dumping the rest on Xander who protested half-heartedly. Willow smiled slightly. She was glad they were getting along better.

"Hey Dean, Xander and I were going to meet up with Buffy on Saturday to see Jerry Maguire. Do you want to come?" Dean looked down uncertainly and Willow tried to think of something to persuade him.

"The previews showed some football in it so it can't be too girly." Xander said while drying his hair with his t-shirt. "And I think we might go bowling or something afterward." Dean looked down and rubbed the back of his head.

"Saturday's the fourteenth right? I've gotta meet with someone, but uh, maybe…maybe after?" Willow and Xander eyed each other and shared bright grins.

* * *

"Dean, can you help me with my math homework?" Dean tore his eyes away from the Home Improvement re-run. Nicky was using his best puppy dog eyes and Dean had a hard time resisting.

"Fine, but only one problem. My social worker's gonna be here any minute." The third grader climbed onto the couch and crawled until he was almost on top of Dean, shoving the worksheet in his face.

"You have six quarters, five dimes, three nickels, and ten pennies. The candy you want to buy costs $1.30. Do you have enough money? If so, what is the least amount of coins you can use to pay for your candy without getting back change? Whew, you're moving onto the hard stuff ain'tcha?" Nicky nodded seriously. The kid had a hard time of it in school. Like Dean, Nicky was a physical kind of kid and didn't do well cooped up in a classroom half the day learning numbers and vocabulary. Dean remembered how quickly Sam had caught on to counting money and his unnatural love for school. He wistfully longed for the days when his brother would bug him for help with his homework.

"I know I have enough money, but I don't know which way the teacher wants me to put the coins together."

"Well the simplest way is usually the best. What's the easiest way to get to $1.30?"

Nicky furrowed his brow. "Can't you just tell me?"

"I could, but it's oh so fun to see you struggle." Nicky pouted, and stuck his tongue out before diving into deep thought. Dean went back to watching Tim Allen as he waited for the kid.

"With…five quarters I've got $1.25, but with six quarters it's $1.50, that's too much Dean."

"You've got other kindsa coins dontcha?"

"Um, dimes, nickels, and pennies. With five pennies I've got" Nicky started to count on his fingers, "one, two, three, four, five, six…ten, ten coins."

"Errrr!" Dean sounded. "Too much, too many. I'll give you a hint, you only need one more coin."

The boy thought hard for another minute as he scribbled different combinations on his worksheet, before enlightenment dawned on his face.

"Five quarters and a nickel! I forgot about the nickels! Thanks Dean!" The doorbell rang and Nana Nina plodded to the front door from the kitchen, standing on her tip toes in her fuzzy white slippers to see through the peep hole.

"It's some woman, I don't recognize her." Nana informed them. The doorbell rang again.

"Well, are you gonna open it or not?" Nana scowled at him before unlocking the bolt and opening the door.

"Hi! Are you Nina Snell? I'm Deborah Little, from social services." The blonde stranger said perkily. The woman couldn't be more than thirty five, but she dressed like she was still in the 80's. There was a scrunchie holding back her hair and the oversized blazer hid her thin frame.

Dean and Nicky watched Nana perform her customary scrutiny, Deborah Little withered under the black woman's harsh gaze.

"Oh, um, I have my papers with me, if you want to look them over." Deborah Little pulled some loose sheets from her briefcase and handed them to the foster mother.

Dean got up from the couch as Nana handed the papers back to the young social worker.

"Come on in, Ms. Little. You're here for Dean, right? What happened to his usual case worker?"

"Linda's on maternity leave, I'm just filling in for her. Oh, but I promise I'll do just as good a job! Now which one of you is…?" Smiling widely, the cheery woman looked around the living room, taking in the many hand knitted quilts, the still playing TV, the five Bibles on the table, Nicky looking at her strangely from behind Dean, and Tina peeking from the top of the staircase.

"I'm Dean."

"Oh, good!" The woman clapped happily. "Now, is there some place we can talk privately?"

"Nicky, go upstairs and play with your sister." Nana commanded, leading Deborah Little and Dean into the kitchen. Nana turned back around to look at Nicky loitering at the bottom of the stairs. "And don't even think about using those sticky fingers of yours! Upstairs, now!" Nicky scowled before rushing up the stairs. Dean could hear his twin giggling at her brother getting caught before he could start lifting something from the social worker. Dean chuckled a little to himself. The kid took after his own heart.

"Sticky fingers?" Deborah Little asked as she sat down at the kitchen table. Dean sat down opposite her. Nana started making coffee.

"The boy and his sister lived on the streets for more than two months, they did what they had to, but old habits die hard. If I hadn't sent him away you'd be missing your wallet or keychain by now."

"Oh! Well, uh, why don't we get started?" The woman opened her briefcase once again and pulled out a thick file. "Now, since we're just meeting each other do you mind if we briefly go over your history? I like to know as much as I can before diving right into the meat of it!" The woman laughed strangely and Dean shifted uncomfortably.

"Sure, I guess."

"Good! Now let's see, it says here that you entered into the system September 30th 1992, is that correct? Good, okay…And you and your brother were put into a foster home in LA but you were separated after two months when the two of you were found to be emotionally co-dependent, oh that's so sad! After your expulsion you spent six months in juvenile prison, and I see here you received intensive therapy for all the sudden changes you experienced that year, that's good." Nana set three cups of coffee on the table and took a seat herself. Dean grabbed for his mug and took a big swallow, burning his mouth. He wondered why the woman didn't read his file before showing up here.

"After your release the courts decided to send you here, to Sunnydale, and outside of a few disturbances at school like cutting class or sneaking out of your home in the middle of the night you've been a model citizen. You applied for emancipation when you were sixteen, but denied because of your juvenile record." Deborah Little closed his folder and took a sip of coffee, still grinning widely at Dean. "Now, I'm here because starting January 25th you will no longer be a ward of the state. Your juvenile record will be sealed, and California will no longer be obligated to pay for your room and board or medical bills. Now, since you still have a year and a half of high school left you can apply to have your guardianship extended until your graduation or—"

"I'm not going to do that." Deborah Little's cheery smile wavered.

"Are you sure? It will be very difficult to pay for a place to stay and attend school full time. Or are you planning to drop out? Because that is something I highly discourage."

"I'm going to graduate, the judge said he'd give me custody of my brother if I graduated. And I've been saving for an apartment, I've got almost six thousand put away."

Deborah Little twiddled her fingers. "Six thousand is certainly a lot of money for someone so young to have saved but if you truly want custody of your brother Samuel you're going to need a full time job to provide for the two of you. Six thousand will be swallowed up in no time."

"I've already got a job lined up." The judges' conditions were clear. Graduate, get a good job, stay out of trouble, and Dean would get custody.

"But—"

"Dean can stay here until the end of May." His foster mother sipped her coffee nonchalantly, paying no mind to Dean and Deborah Little's surprised looks.

"It'll save him money and keep him focused on school, at least till the end of the year."

"You are aware that California will be under no obligation to continue to pay you for Dean's housing?"

Nana scowled at the 80's reject. "I don't do this for the money. Dean's a troublemaker, but he's good with the younger ones, so long as he helps around the house a little more he can stay until he finishes the school year." Dean wasn't sure he liked the idea of staying for an extra five months, but the idea of saving his money for just a bit longer was appealing.

"Alright, then." Deborah Little said. They talked for another half hour of different college scholarships that were available for former foster kids, and support groups for people who had left the system, and a money management seminar to help him get started on living a healthy independent life. Dean had no intention of using any of the resources she told him about. He was tired of relying on the government to feed and clothe him, he knew how to take care of himself, he'd done it often enough as a child.

"Call me anytime, Dean!" The social worker said as she left the house. "I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you might have!" With one last overly cheery smile, she waved goodbye and drove off in an old Volkswagen.

* * *

"Hey Dean, are you still coming here for Christmas?"

"Wouldn't miss it for anything, Sammy."

"Do you think your foster mom will make those cookies again this year? Dad sad he really liked them when we brought them with us last time."

"Did dad say that, or was it you? I think there was maybe half a cookie left by the time we got to Chino last year."

"You were the one that stuffed your face!"

"_You were the one that stuffed your face!"_

"My voice isn't that high Dean!"

"Face it Sam, you sound like a chipmunk."

"You're such a jerk!"

"At least I'm not a high voiced bitch."

* * *

Comments: Thank you to all who reviewed! You people are always an inspiration.

The chapter title I believe deserves a little explanation. It's the title of a Blue Oyster Cult song about a fictional sect of the Hells Angels being evil devil worshipers. I decided to use it since this is the first chapter the Order of Aurelius has really made an appearance in this story and they're pretty much a secret cult so...yeah.


	4. Perfect Part 1

Authors Note: This is part one of chapter four. The second half is giving me a lot of trouble and I'm worried that if I wait to post the whole chapter my wonderful readers wouldn't get anything new until Christmas. So here is part one. When part two is finally ready this chapter will be re-uploaded with the full chapter.

* * *

Chapter Four: Perfect Part 1

"Don't sweat it Sam, Cheryl's gonna be all over you tomorrow."

Sam fidgeted nervously as he walked beside Artie. Cheryl was one of two other students in the ninth grade that he was actually taller than, and she was beautiful. Chin length curly red hair, deep brown eyes, a melodic laugh, and a passionate personality. She played catcher on the JV softball team, was a member of the philosophy and film clubs, played Little Orphan Annie in the fall musical, and even with all of her extra-curricular activities had time to volunteer at the nearby animal shelter and still get straight A's. Sam was taking her to see Jerry Maguire tomorrow and nervous didn't even begin to describe how he felt about his impending first date.

"I dunno. She's so perfect, and I'm…" He trailed off knowing Artie would understand. Artie was attending Cuthbert's School for Higher Education on a scholarship and sometimes Sam thought the two of them were the only ones in the entire school who knew what it was like to come from a not so perfect family. The memories of moving from motel to motel and school to school were fading fast in Sam's mind, he'd only been nine when his father had been arrested, but meeting Artie and hearing him tell stories about his dysfunctional family had brought a lot of it back.

"No one's perfect, man. Listen, all you gotta do is lighten up, bat those big sappy eyes of yours and she'll be licking your hand like a dog. You keep it up for a few dates and she might even let you get to third base." Sam grabbed the soccer ball Artie had been bouncing on his knees as they walked and punted it down the street of a nearby neighborhood empty of traffic. Lesson learned. When it came to girls, Artie was just like Dean.

Artie colorfully swore at him in a mix of Spanish and English as he ran off to retrieve his ball. Artie fancied himself the next Claudio Suarez and swore he was going to be on a national team someday. Sam usually indulged his best friend's dream, helping him practice during the off season and analyzing soccer plays and strategies but the stress and excitement of his date with Cheryl and Dean coming into town gave him little sympathy for Artie as he watched him struggle to get his ball out from under a hefty SUV.

"Not cool man! This could've been stuck under there for forever!" Artie scowled at him as he waved his scuffed ball in front of Sam's face. Sam scowled back as they continued to walk toward Kensington and Park Street.

Artie let out a small chuckle. "Your brother's right, you really are a prissy bitch. Hey, isn't Dean coming into town tonight? Is he staying until New Year's? Maybe he can come with us to Alice's party?! That would be awesome! I haven't seen him since school started!" Sam had almost forgotten how well Dean and Artie had hit it off when they met in August at Cuthbert's New Student Beach Party.

Sam shook his head. "Dean's leaving the day after Christmas, he can't really afford to take more time off work."

Artie nodded in understanding and they walked in companionable silence until their paths diverged at the next corner. They got there just in time for Artie's bus and Sam had to hastily agree to call his friend after his date with Cheryl and promise to bring Dean along if they had a chance to meet up with him during Christmas Break. With one last wave Sam started strolling down Kensington towards the Pennington Estates. It was a good ten minute walk between the bus stop and the posh gated community. He stopped at the security building to remind the guards to let his brother's Impala in. He didn't want a repeat from last summer when Dean had been stuck outside the gates for a good two hours before climbing the fence. Security had chased him all the way to Rick and Melinda's house. Sam knew that only happened because Dean had let them see him but still, he'd rather avoid the situation all together by making sure the Impala made it through the iron gates.

His foster home was at the top of the hill and you could see the Santa Monica pier from any second story window on a clear day. Sam had thought he'd been transported into a fairytale when CPS dropped him here for the first time. His ten year old brain had thought it was a castle but it was actually quite modest compared to other homes in the area. It was still too big for three people and two dogs but Sam had gotten used to the open floor plans and he'd certainly never complain about the heated swimming pool.

Sam was unsurprised to find his foster mother, Melinda, in her bathroom, getting her hair and make-up ready. Rick was hosting a party downtown in celebration and promotion of the success of one of his new artists and Melinda had a habit of waiting to get dressed up until the very last minute. Sam had gotten home at four, the before party started at five, and it would take Melinda at least 45 minutes to get to the restaurant she was meeting Rick and his new music sensation.

"Sam!" Melinda cried excitedly when she saw him in the mirror. "Thank God! I'm late and I missed my appointment with the hairdresser because of a last minute client, can you hold this right here please?" Melinda exuberantly motioned for him to hold one of her black curls in place so she could pin it. "How were your midterms? Did you do well? Of course you did well, you always do well! Did you get a chance to talk to that Cheryl girl you're taking out tomorrow? I can't wait to meet her, Lydia, Dylan Grisby's mother, talks about how charming that girl is all the time! Are you sure you don't want me to drive you two to the theater? Oh, what am I saying! You're a teenager, of course you don't want me to drive you!" On and on it went. Melinda rambled as she pointed to where she wanted her hair bobby pinned and Sam couldn't bring himself to feel the slightest bit embarrassed that he was helping his foster mother, really the only mother he had ever known, do up her hair. When they'd finished Melinda stood up to perform a girlish twirl and Sam clapped and chuckled a little at her antics. He sometimes wondered how a woman so kind, gentle, and excitable had the reputation of a bull dog in the courtroom.

Sam walked Melinda to the front door, listening with half an ear to the instructions she left every time he was left home alone. "Rick and I won't be back until after midnight, emergency numbers are on the fridge, Mrs. Batters is next door if you need her, can you walk the dogs? I didn't have time to do it earlier so they need an extra long walk tonight. There are frozen pizzas for dinner, there are two of them so plenty enough for you and Dean whenever he gets here…Are you alright? You've been so quiet lately."

Sam smiled a little at her concern, shook his head and readied the lie on his tongue. "I'm fine, just nervous about Cheryl tomorrow." Melinda bent down to his height and Sam found himself staring into her brown orbs as they searched his own eyes, probing for any other worries and concerns he wasn't telling her. He knew she knew he had just lied. Sort of. He was nervous about Cheryl, but she wasn't the thing he was dreading about tomorrow.

"You can always tell me anything, you know that right?" Sam nodded his head and Melinda smiled before kissing his cheek and saying good bye. Sam had to bite his tongue to keep from saying 'See you later, mom!' Dean would never forgive him. Instead he smiled and waved, not trusting his himself to not say the dreaded "M" word.

The large house was uncomfortably silent after Melinda left and it was only Dora and Sherlock's barking that reminded him that he wasn't alone. Sam ran back up the stairs to change out of his Cuthbert uniform and into some shorts, a t-shirt, and his favorite sneakers. Dean wouldn't be here until seven so he had plenty of time for a run. He grabbed the leashes from the mudroom, fastened them to the two Labradors and soon they were out the door.

* * *

Cordelia stared at her reflection in the car's view mirror, admiring her beauty. Her hair was perfect, her make-up tastefully mature and her emerald cocktail dress flattered her figure in a way that made her look older than sixteen. She took a deep breath and practiced her most charming smile. She was going to turn heads tonight. She was Cordelia Chase and if those Hollywood hotshots didn't think she was worth their time it was their loss.

Her daddy had been invited to a party in honor of some singer she had never heard of. She planned to snap a picture or two with the guy in case he made it big, her mind was already picturing ways to use her future connections with the him to stay ahead of Harmony, the little vixen was becoming a little too comfortable in her newly elevated position as Cordette number two, but the true reason she had worked so hard to convince her father to bring her along was because of all the talent agents that were sure to be there.

It was touching really, that her parents wanted to keep her away from fame and becoming a celebrity too early. Child stars were so easily messed up and fragile, but she was sixteen now and if Cordelia waited any longer to tip her toes in the water she'd be twenty-one by the time she became a serious actress and there was no way she was waiting that long. It had taken her days to convince her father to bring her along as his plus one and her sense of accomplishment from doing well on her mid-term exams and bullying her dad had inflated her already high confidence.

Clasping her clutch in her right hand she stood up straight and followed her father into the galleria.

The room was crowded with about fifty guests and ten serving staff, all of whom were circling around the little white tables placed around the party room forming little pockets of minglers. Her father was already buttering up some of his business associates leaving Cordelia to fend for herself amongst all these strangers. She quickly bottled up her rage before it could flush her cheeks, she'd have to remember to yell at her father later for forgetting to make the rounds with her. In the corner of her eye she saw the guest of honor sitting alone awkwardly with a guitar case and far too underdressed in his converse and Radiohead t-shirt. A plan of approach formed in her head and she headed over to the bar to ask for two Sprites. Clutch under her shoulder and a cup in both hands she headed over to the guitarist's table.

"Is it alright if I sit here?" The young man, Cordelia would guess he was about nineteen, startled when she spoke.

"Oh, um, sure, if you want?" Cordelia sat down and catalogued the young musician. His jeans were a bit tattered, but clean, and a plaid shirt was wrapped around his waist. His accent wasn't SoCal and judging by his grunge she'd guess he was from Washington or Oregon. His shoulders were hunched in, closing himself off the way the nerds in Sunnydale did whenever she needed to use the computer lab, but his knees were facing towards her so he was receptive to her presence. She could definitely work with this, if only he were just a tiny bit more handsome.

Cordelia gave him her Best Friendly Smile and leaned a little forward. "You looked a little lonely. This your first party?"

He gave her a wry smile. "Is it that obvious?"

"A little." She pushed a cup toward him. "Here, you'll look more sociable if you've got a drink. It's just Sprite, nothing fancy."

"Thanks. I'm Jeremy, and uh, welcome to my party."

"Cordelia. So you're the guest of honor, huh?"

"Yeah, I just signed with Talmadge Records a couple weeks ago." Cordelia leaned back but scooted her chair slightly closer to Jeremy.

"So Jeremy, do you just play guitar or do you do other things?"

"Oh, I sing and play the piano too. I write my own songs but Rick, er, Mr. Talmadge thinks they need a bit of work so someone else will be writing my songs for a while. Hopefully just my first album." Cordelia calculatingly placed her manicured hand on Jeremy's forearm and cocked her head flirtatiously.

"Wow, so you're a bit of a renaissance man, you do a bit of everything!" Jeremy's cheeks flushed and he bowed his head, brushing his bangs down with his other hand. "Wha-what about you? Are you a musician, Cordelia?"

"Me? No, I'm an actress, but I suppose I could be a musician if I really wanted to." Cordelia lowered her eyes and started tracing circles along Jeremy's arm. "You're really lucky you know. You must have a great agent to have gotten a contract with Talmadge Records. I had to let mine go recently. She just wasn't getting me noticed enough."

"Yeah, Dan is pretty cool, it only took him a few weeks to get me signed. People say he's some kinda miracle worker." Jeremy looked down at his feet and blushed. Cordy had to hold back a smile, she knew just what he was going to say next. A little attention and flattery opened Jeremy up wide and now he would do almost anything to try and impress her. "I could, uh, introduce you, if you want? He's over there with Stacy and Mrs. Talmadge." Jeremy pointed to another table not too far away where a man and two women were mingling. The man she assumed to be Dan was average looking, a little on the short side and his hair was an absolute nightmare, but even with the distance between them she could tell his suit was expensive and well-tailored. The first woman was young, no more than ten years older than Cordelia and her blonde hair was done up in a classic bun. The second woman was beautiful. She wore a flattering navy evening gown that shimmered when she moved and her raven curls were pinned delicately around her head. Sapphire stones glimmered around her neck and for a second, just for a second, Cordelia was mesmerized.

"Mrs. Talmadge is the one with the black hair." Jeremy explained to her. "She's Rick's wife, I think she's some kind of lawyer. Stacy isn't exactly an agent, but Dan says she's got a talent for introducing the right people to each other and she gets a finder's fee in exchange. C'mon, I'll introduce you." Jeremy grabbed her hand and Cordelia just had time to grab her drink and clutch before she was excitedly tugged toward miracle worker Dan, the beautiful lawyer, and the blonde talent finder.

Dan saw the two of them heading toward the professional trio and motioned for them to sit down. Jeremy sat next to Dan and Cordelia next to Jeremy.

"Jeremy! The man of the hour! I didn't know you were bringing a date!" Jeremy's cheeks flushed and Cordelia found it almost cute.

"No, uh, we just met. Dan this is Cordelia uh…"

"Chase." She finished for him. "Cordelia Chase." Dan's eyes roamed all over her and Cordelia decided it was best to grin and bear it. She was used to people staring at her like she was candy.

"Dan Druthers, and these are Melinda Talmadge and Stacy Stackshaw." Cordelia turned her head to look at the two women and saw that Dan wasn't the only one eyeing her. Stacy was looking at her like an unopened Christmas present and a thrill of pleasure and excitement shot through her abdomen.

"Are you a model, Cordelia?" Stacy Stackshaw asked. Cordelia almost preened at the implications!

Cordelia had always known she was beautiful but even she didn't think her beauty would get her noticed this quickly. All she had to do was reel them in with her looks and ensnare them with her magnetic personality.

"I dabble, I'm more of an actress than anything."

"And what sort of productions have you acted in Cordelia." Melinda Talmadge asked. Cordelia could tell she was bored by the turn of the conversation and only asking to be polite. Some ridiculous part of her was disappointed this woman wasn't as interested in her as Dan Druthers and Stacy Stackshaw and she racked her brains for something interesting to capture her attention.

"I played Young Cosette several years ago here in LA, but most of my acting jobs have been in Sunnydale." Melinda's eyes instantly lit up and Cordelia was unsure of what she'd said to spark the instant enthusiasm, she hadn't even gotten to the interesting thing she was going to say.

"Sunnydale! Quite an interesting little town. I visited once several years ago, I had a client who lived there. Sorry Daniel, Stacy, you've just seen Cordelia Chase slip through your fingers. I know just the man to introduce you to." Melinda stood gracefully and floated to Cordelia's side of the table, linking their arms together and leading her away. Cordelia looked back to see Jeremy's stunned face at the speed the conversation had come and gone, Dan and Stacy just looked amused, as though Melinda Talmadge routinely took aspiring young girls she had just met under her belt. For all Cordelia knew, she did.

She stumbled and the room spun around her and everything was filtered in blue. Cordelia closed her eyes and reached out for something to steady herself.

"Cordelia! Cordelia, are you alright? Open your eyes honey, let me see."

When she opened her eyes the room was normal again, she was slumped against the bathroom wall and her Sprite had spilled all over the floor and her strappy shoes. Her toes felt wet and sticky but the embarrassment of her fainting spell postponed her outrage at her ruined shoes.

"Oh my God! What happened?" Comforting hands were placed on her shoulders and Cordelia looked up to find warm chocolate eyes.

"Don't you remember Cordelia? You said you weren't feeling well so I took you here to the bathroom and you fainted. You're not on one of those silly Don't-Eat-Anything diets are you? Those are really dangerous and not remotely effective. You really need to eat…" Cordelia listened as Melinda Talmadge babbled on and she slowly started to relax as her breathing evened out.

"I'm fine Melinda, don't worry. I'm just a little dehydrated, didn't drink enough fluids today, or something." Melinda was kind enough to help her clean the stick off her shoes and after Cordelia stated for the umpteenth time that she was feeling better Melinda took her back to the party and introduced her to at least ten new people before she had to rejoin her husband. Over the next two hours Cordelia collected five business cards, finally got her father to introduce her to his contacts and eventually managed to wind her way back over to Jeremy to get his picture and number. Besides her embarrassing fainting spell she'd had a very pleasant evening and as her father was driving them back home to Sunnydale she looked over her new contacts giddily paying extra attention to Melinda Talmadge's business card.

Melinda Talmadge

Attorney

Wolfram & Hart

(760) xxx-xxxx EXT xxx

On the back was a small handwritten note.

Call my home anytime. I'd love to have you for coffee!

* * *

Sam absently traced the gilded W&H on Melinda's briefcase as he waited for the low rumble of the Impala to make it over the hill. He hadn't seen Dean in almost three months, high school had made his schedule busier than he was used to and it was difficult to juggle everything and make time for his brother. Dean had offered several times to drive the three hours between Sunnydale and the Talmadges' house in Pennington Estates but Rick and Melinda had nixed the idea. They didn't like the idea of his brother driving such a distance in heavy city traffic alone at night, and the two adults decided that if the two brothers were going to see each other at all, it would be for long visits, the phone would have to do in the interim. Sam could see their point, but it still was difficult to go so long without seeing his brother. He regretfully thought back to Thanksgiving the month before. The plan had been for Dean to spend the school break with them but Rick's sister had been diagnosed with stage two lung cancer and the three of them had had to fly to Denver at the last minute.

Both pizzas were baking in the oven and Sam had taken the time to set out several B-grade horror movies for Dean and him to watch. It had become something of a tradition whenever Dean came to visit to skewer the movie monsters and critique the hero's killing technique. Sometimes Dean would go on half-hour long tangents on how this or that was wrong, and how werewolves aren't actually hairy and Sam would quietly listen, sometimes putting in his two cents if he recognized a monster from dad's journal or one of the tomes Uncle Bobby or Pastor Jim had sent him to study from or practice translating.

The oven buzzed and Sam scampered to the kitchen, grabbing some hot pads he pulled the pizza trays out of the oven and placed them on the counter. The garage door sounded as he was cutting the second pizza and Sam couldn't help rolling his eyes. Of course Dean would get here just as the food was ready.

Sam managed to open the side door before Dean had a chance to knock and greeted Dean with a cheeky grin.

"You're late."

"By fifteen minutes!" Dean shouldered his way through the door, unceremoniously dropping his duffel by one of the dog crates. "Besides," Dean reached out with his free hand to ruffle Sam's hair. "I brought pie." Sam halfheartedly knocked Dean's hand away before running his fingers through his own hair, making sure Dean hadn't messed it up too badly.

The two of them moved into the kitchen and Dean immediately went for the pizza, not even pausing to shuck off dad's old jacket or to grab a plate.

"Ah! It's hot!" Sam rolled his eyes again.

"It just came out, Dean." His brother glowered at him for a moment before grabbing a plate from the cabinet, Sam grabbed a plate, a slice for himself and two cans of Coke before leading Dean to the media room.

They sat together for several minutes, quietly eating, both pretending that the awkwardness wasn't there, that it hadn't been three months since they'd last seen each other. Sure, they talked on the phone all the time but it was different in person, more intimate, more sibling like and it seemed to Sam that with every subsequent visit from Dean it took longer for their latent sibling bond to click into place.

"So…you still going out with that girl tomorrow?"

Sam looked down, slightly embarrassed. "Cheryl, and yeah, I'm taking her to see Jerry Maguire. You sure it's alright? I can always reschedule for when you're not here."

Dean stuffed his mouth with more pepperoni and shook his head. "Nah, I can get some last minute Christmas shopping done while you're making out in the theater." Sam was about to call Dean out on his lie when a blank look crossed his brother's face, as if he'd just had a sudden, horrifying thought.

"Dean?"

"Sammy, you uh…you do know about the birds and the bees right?" Sam almost dropped his plate.

"Yes!" His voice did not just squeak, he'd just swallowed wrong. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, that's, um, been covered."

"Good, cause you're not getting the sex talk from me. It was bad enough going through it the first time." Sam let out a small chuckle.

"I can just imagine dad's version of the talk. 'Put the bullets in the clip for protection until you're ready to fire'."

Dean snorted and a suspicious glint appeared in his eye. "Dude, did you eavesdrop on me and dad all those years ago?"

Sam felt his face turn a bright red. "No!" Dean started to cackle.

"Dude, you did!" Sam threw a pillow at Dean's face.

"NO!…Did he really tell it like that?"

"Nah, dad's not really one for using metaphors." Sam made a face he knew Dean had long ago labeled Bitch Face Number Three.

"Can we move away from this conversation now?"

Dean shrugged his shoulders and for the first time that evening Sam's attention was drawn to the sewn up tear in dad's old leather jacket. He bit his lip, wondering if he should mention it but Dean noticed him staring before he could make a decision.

"Giant praying mantis."

"Seriously?"

"It liked to eat virgin high school students, Buffy and I took care of it last month."

"Why didn't you tell me on the phone?" Dean shrugged his shoulders again.

"I dunno, it never came up. So what kind of movies have we got tonight?" Dean shuffled to the table where the movies were laid out. "Wolf, Gremlins, Goonies…Nightmare Before Christmas? Seriously?"

"Cheryl said it was good."

Dean shook his head sadly. "Dude, you're not even dating yet and she's already got you whipped."

* * *

Authors Note 2: I just want to thank everyone who has reviewed, alerted, and favorited. Every little acknowledgment that people are enjoying my story keeps my writing momentum up. Fall semester is starting up in two weeks so it will be harder for me to find time to write this story but I fully intend to finish this story, however long it takes.


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